


it's all or nothing

by andawaywego



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, I Mean Slow Burn, I promise, I'm not kidding, Slow Burn, Smut, Yearning, and Theo & Shirley Crain are in this, background Dani/Edmund, but they're probably so OOC that they don't count, but this is a Damie fic okay?, for real, guys...the yearning, married at first sight au, so are Arthur Lloyd & Charlotte Wingrave, technically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:01:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 104,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andawaywego/pseuds/andawaywego
Summary: “‘I love you,’ Jamie says. ‘More than I’ve ever loved anything in my life. And I know it’s selfish...that it’s asking too much, but please...close the door for me. Because I can’t do this anymore.’Dani’s fingers curl into Jamie’s hair. She’s crying and Jamie wants to kiss away each tear. ‘I can’t. I don’t know how,’ she admits, a sob breaking apart the words. ‘I don’t know what to do.’”[or: a Married at First Sight AU that possibly only i want.]
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie, background Owen/Hannah
Comments: 423
Kudos: 638





	1. Matchmaking Special

**Author's Note:**

> okay. yes. this is a Married at First Sight AU and it's going to be angsty. and a bit of a slow burn. but not the SLOWEST. just...slow. 
> 
> so sorry to any Theo or Shirley stans. they're probably out of character here.
> 
> also so sorry for the Edmund/Dani stuff. it...unfortunately comes with the territory.
> 
> listen...i'm hype about this. i hope you like it and join me for this ride!

Danielle Clayton looks like she’s going to throw up. She’s sitting in her chair with her hands pinned under her thighs, one leg bouncing up and down so forcefully that it’s a surprise it hasn’t come clean off yet. She’s paler than she had been out in the main convention center, when she’d been pulled aside for a quick talking head after signing in, which seems like it should be impossible but somehow isn’t. 

Her eyes keep darting around to look at the room—take in its mostly dark aesthetic and the framed photos of other successful couples from seasons past. Every so often, they land on Jamie, who’s supposed to be double checking that all the mics are online, but is too busy being distracted by the fact that Danielle Clayton looks like she’s going to throw up.

“So, um...w-who...is it exactly that I’m...I’m gonna be talking to?” Danielle asks. 

Horace, the boom operator glances over at Jamie and gives her a shrug.

“Dr. Crain should be here soon,” Jamie says. “Don’t worry. She’s the nice one.” It’s meant to be reassuring, but Danielle just looks even more panicked at her words. “That’s not to say that...Dr. Lloyd and Dr. Wingrave are rude or anything, I was just—” She trails off, wondering if the other woman’s nervousness is contagious. “Would you like some water, Miss Clayton?”

“Oh...Dani’s fine.” Her eyes are still wide with terror, but at least she’s stopped bouncing her leg. “And, um...I think I’m okay.”

“Sure thing, Dani,” Jamie says. 

She really is supposed to be working. After three seasons with the show, she should probably be better at doing that, but the events of today are unprecedented. Normally, she’s paired off with Dr. Wingrave, but with her whole “conflict of interest” thing, she’d been blindsided by being assigned to Dr. Crain instead. 

So now she’s standing in a room with Horace the Boom Guy and Dani, a woman who is signing herself up to be married to a stranger, and wondering how she got here. How any of them got here. 

Especially Dani. 

Dani who has one of the cleanest, brightest smiles Jamie’s ever seen. Whose blue eyes shimmer in the soft fill light. Who held her breath when Jamie hooked up her lavalier, expressing concern that any small movement might make the mic unsteady and likely to fall. 

Dani who somehow—miraculously—hasn’t found someone to love her.

It seems impossible, really. And she sort of wants to tell Dani not to do this, even though she’s certainly not encouraged to bad-mouth the show that employs her. It’s just that she can’t imagine how anyone has ever let her slip through her fingers. 

Of course, none of that is her business.

“Um...what’s your…Sorry.” Dani winces at herself when Jamie looks up. “Can I ask what your...name is?”

God, she’s adorable.

Jamie smiles. “Name’s Jamie,” she says, then throws her thumb over her shoulder at Horace, who waves. “That’s Horace. You’ll be seeing a lot of us if they find you someone.”

For the first time since she sat down, Dani unfolds her posture and relaxes her shoulders a little. “Yeah?” she asks.

“Yep.”

The door opens then and Dr. Crain comes in, her sister Shirley close behind her wielding her Clipboard of Doom. Dani jumps in surprise and then immediately straightens her posture, returning to her nervous leg-bounce. 

“Danielle, it’s so good to meet you,” Dr. Crain says, going over to Dani and smiling down at her. Dr. Theodora Crain, but let’s just stick with Theo. Less of a mouthful.”

Dani begins to throw a hand out for Dr. Crain to shake, but stops herself when it doesn’t look like it will be returned. Jamie curses under her breath. She hadn’t warned Dani about Theo’s aversion to that sort of thing. 

“Dani’s fine,” Dani tells her. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Theo goes to her chair opposite Dani’s and sits down, crossing her legs and folding her hands on her lap. “This is my sister, Shirley,” she says, nodding to the woman in question who is currently directing the camera crew that filed in after them. She stops for a moment to throw a quick smile in Dani’s direction. “She’s one of our story producers, so she’ll be sitting in with us today.”

It’s clear from the way Dani’s eyes can’t settle in one place for too long that she’s quickly becoming overwhelmed. “Okay,” she says, more of a squeak than a word, really.

“Are we almost set?” Theo asks, looking at Shirley.

“Should be,” her sister responds, and Theo turns her eyes to Jamie who almost gives her a thumbs up but stops herself when she sees the way Dani is currently biting at her thumbnail. 

“Just a sec,” she says, and weaves her way past the cameras to get to Dani, who she—careful to keep a respectful distance—bends toward, pretending to fiddle with her lapel mic. “It’s a lot, I know,” she whispers, and Dani’s eyes meet hers. “Just focus on Dr. Crain and you’ll be alright.” She stands back up and turns to Theo, saying, “All set.”

On her way back to her things, Dani mouths a grateful, “Thank you,” at her and Jamie nods, trying to play it off.

Like she’s done that before for anyone on this show.

Like she’s ever cared to.

Horace gives her a knowing look and Jamie rolls her eyes at him, going back to her laptop as Shirley gives final instructions to the camera crew. 

If Dani looks substantially more relaxed, Jamie tells herself it has nothing to do with her.

__________

An hour later, Jamie helps Dani remove her mic while Dani says, “Did I seem crazy?” under her breath.

Jamie laughs and then immediately quiets herself when Shirley throws her a confused look. “Not all,” she says. “You seemed perfectly sane considering.”

She’s got the mic off now and Dani is rebuttoning the middle buttons of her blouse, frowning a little. “Considering what?” she asks.

Jamie doesn’t even hesitate: “Considering you’ve just had a so-called relationship expert digging through your romantic history for the past hour.”

“Oh,” Dani says, then laughs a little. “Okay. Good.” She stands there a moment later, mic-less and clearly trying to string together a proper goodbye. 

Finally, Jamie puts her out of her misery. “You’re all set,” she says. “Until next time.”

She doesn’t really think about how that could be interpreted until Dani is saying, “Here’s hoping,” and crossing her left middle finger over her forefinger and shaking her hand a little. She hesitates one second more and then she’s gone, disappearing out the door and into the hotel again.

Jamie stands there, holding her still-warm mic, and finds herself hoping she’ll see Dani again while simultaneously really, _really_ hoping she doesn’t.

__________

“My _god_ , do they always ask such specific questions about your sex life?” 

Owen’s tipsy on his second margarita for the night, his legs kicked up on Jamie’s coffee table, holding his swirly straw between his fingers like a kid. Jamie looks at him from where she’s sitting on the floor, nursing the same margarita she’s had the whole night. Usually always ready to over-share the details of his life, it had taken Owen approximately half his first one to even start talking about his own interview at _all_. Now, he won’t shut up.

“Yeah,” Jamie says. “They do.”

“Christ,” Owen swears and then jostles about a little, like he can’t get comfortable. “Y’know, Arthur _actually_ asked me if I’ve ever had a threesome.”

Jamie snorts at that, choking a little on her drink. The sour mix gets in her nose, making her eyes water and she has to cough a little before it goes away. Owen points a wavering finger at her.

“It’s not funny,” he says.

“Oh, it’s _very_ funny. What did you say?”

Owen looks at her, eyes blown wide with surprise as he sputters out something that sounds like, “What? No! I told him no!”

She quirks an eyebrow at him and takes another drink. Funny as it may be, she’s going to need to be a little drunker to discuss her best friend’s sexual history. “S’your loss,” she says.

Owen baulks at that. “You’re kidding me. Jamie...you _haven’t_.”

She hasn’t, but she remains silent for a long moment, giving him a serious look. Eventually, his look of disgust and vague appreciation is too much and a grin breaks free. “No, I haven’t.”

“I hate you.” Owen throws a balled-up tissue at her and it bounces off her forehead, landing on the floor. “I was afraid for your soul, you know.”

“The look on your face was pretty great.”

“You’re a terrible friend.” He relaxes again and takes another long drink from his margarita. “And you have the worst taste in drinks. What’s a fella’ gotta do to get a nice bourbon around here?”

Jamie throws the napkin back at him and it lands in his lap. “Fruity drinks are objectively better,” she says.

“And _you’re_ objectively a weenie. A weenie for _martinis_.”

“This...these aren’t martinis. You know that right? And a weenie? What? Are you five?”

He thumbs his nose at her and then laughs at himself. 

On the television, a couple is fighting while they’re in a rowboat and Jamie rolls her eyes. The last thing she wants to do is _watch_ work while she’s at home, but Owen insisted on streaming the U.S. version of the show when he first came over. He’d spent the entire first episode second-guessing his answers to every question he’d been asked earlier on in the afternoon.

“Sure you want that?” Jamie asks, nodding to the couple. The woman throws a flip flop at the man’s head and it lands in the lake, bobbing beside them pathetically. “Someone throwing a bloody shoe at your head.”

She’s expecting a sardonic reply, but she doesn’t get it. Instead, Owen sighs long and heavy and, when she looks at him, he’s staring at the television a little wistfully.

“Yeah,” he says. “Not the shoe part, of course.” He pauses. “Unless I deserve it. But the marriage part? Having a partner part? Absolutely. And since _someone_ refuses to marry me…”

He grins at her, cheeky and proud. She rolls her eyes, but can’t fight smiling back at him. He’s ridiculous, God love him. Preposterous and possibly pathetic, yes, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You’re still not my type,” she says and he cackles.

“S’too bad,” he says. “But...if I can’t have you, then I guess a stranger will do.” He finishes off his drink and then shakes it in the air. “I need more of this,” he says.

“I thought you hated it.”

“Well, I do. But since it’s all you have in your flat, I’m willing to compromise.”

Jamie gets to her feet, setting her own almost-empty glass down and takes the cup from him, tussling his hair on her way to the kitchen. He sighs happily, already looking half-asleep, and keeps his eyes trained on the television.

In the kitchen, she leans against the counter and lets herself consider the possibilities for the first time since Owen applied to the whole thing. She’d tried to talk him out of it so many times—told him horror stories of seasons past for couples that didn’t work out, cited all of his good qualities that were worthy of someone, anyone—but he’d been insistent. 

It’s not that he hasn’t expressed interest in marriage in the past. Two years ago, he’d almost proposed to a woman who’d been cheating on him for almost a year. But part of her can’t help but worry that his mother’s death is what spurred him on to make such a drastic decision.

More than anything, she’s hoping they don’t find him a match, even if guilt roils in her stomach at the thought. People like Owen, she thinks, deserve to find love on their own. 

People like Owen and like Dani.

At the thought of the woman, Jamie shakes herself out of her thoughts and quickly fills a clean glass with water from the tap, popping Owen’s swirly straw in it for good measure. In the living room, she hands it over and watches as he takes a long pull and then immediately frowns.

“Waiter, I didn’t ask for this,” he slurs sleepily. 

“I’ve sixty-nined the margaritas for the night,” she tells him and then Owen is spitting his water out, spraying her coffee table with it. “Jesus! Owen, what the hell?”

“It’s eighty-six!” he tells her, all the way awake again. He’s laughing so hard she’s a little afraid he might choke or pass out. She pats him firmly on the back in an effort to help clear his lungs.

“What?”

“When you...when you run out of something,” he explains, “it’s eighty-six.”

“Oh.” She can feel herself blushing already, embarrassment tightening in her throat. “Right. Always thought that sounded a wee bit off.”

“Sixty-nine!” Owen bellows again, losing himself to another fit of laughter that takes him a good five minutes to fall out of.

Once he’s calmed down a little, he lies back on the couch, stretching out and resting his feet on the armrest opposite his head. Jamie grabs a blanket from the armchair in the corner and throws it over his body, then sits on the floor in front of him. 

The couple is kissing now and explaining why they wanted to get married at first sight. This is about the tenth time, by her count, that they’ve explained it in the last half-an-hour. She hates that phrase, hates the repetitiveness of it. She can’t even fathom how many times she’s recorded people saying exactly that. And, with the new season having already begun, she won’t be free of it any time soon.

“What if she doesn’t like me?” Owen asks, and he sounds so worried about it that Jamie bites her tongue.

She doesn’t tell him that the odds of them finding a suitable enough match to pick him are already pretty slim. That won’t help anything. She’s already prepared for that, anyway—has already been looking at singles’ events in the city that she’d grin and bear if it meant she could be his wingman. She’ll find him someone good enough for him if it kills her. He deserves that. 

But, for now, she just says: “Then I’ll knock her silly.”

Owen snorts into the throw pillow he’s got under his head. “I’m sure that’ll really make me a _hit_.”

Jamie freezes. Sighs. Says, “Speaking of,” and then reaches back to lightly punch him in the ribs.

“Hey,” he says, squirming away. “I’m delicate.”

“’Course you are.” 

They’re silent for a while as Owen slowly starts to drift to sleep. Jamie sits there, watching two people on the screen who can’t seem to stop fighting one another long enough to fall in love, and thinks about Owen in that position. Standing at the end of an aisle in a tuxedo, no idea who’s coming out to meet him in a wedding dress.

In an instant, the image changes and she’s suddenly imagining Dani in the same position, though she’s not exactly sure why. She pinches her leg and shakes her head to clear it. 

God save her if the two of them end up together. Jamie’s not sure why the thought of that makes her feel like she can’t get enough air. She chalks it up to her worry over her best friend and tries to leave it at that.

“She’ll love you,” she says to Owen.

“Yeah?” he mumbles back.

“Sure.” She leans her head back against his arm and closes her eyes. “What’s not to love?”

__________

Dani is sitting on her front porch when the vans pull up. She’s wearing more casual clothes than she had been for her interview, and there’s something about the sight of her in a dark purple knit sweater that makes it hard for Jamie to stop looking at her. 

She’s so distracted by it that she accidentally forgets to clip Charlotte Wingrave’s mic to the collar of her shirt and it lands on her shoulder. Fortunately, Charlotte is kind, if a little too bright for Jamie to be around for too long. She just smiles and pats Jamie on the arm saying, “No trouble, dear,” before heading away.

Thankfully, Shirley isn’t here to breathe down Jamie’s neck for the whole thing.

“Hi again,” Dani says as Jamie approaches her slowly, holding a mic pack in her hands. 

“Hey,” Jamie greets. “Nice to see you.”

“You, too.” She takes a step down the stairs of her porch so she’s closer and then darts her eyes around to the camera crew and scattered others shuffling around her yard. “The home visit,” she begins, eyes finally settling on Jamie again. “That’s a good thing?”

Even three years in, Jamie isn’t exactly certain how the experts go through the process of narrowing down the search. She only sees that which ends up in the show, and it’s not much past the discussion where they make the final decisions once interviews are done. But she does know that, of the thirty or so women she filmed being interviewed the same day as Dani, Dani is one of only three they’re visiting from Theo’s batch.

“I reckon,” she answers, hoping that’s enough. “Or they just want permission to snoop through your things on television.” 

“Oh, God,” Dani says with a little laugh. “I hope not.”

Jamie shakes her head. “You’ll be fine. Can I…?” She holds up the mic back and Dani steps down even further so they’re the same height. She turns obediently and lifts up the back of her sweater, leaving Jamie to try and keep her on her mic only as she turns it on and tucks it into Dani’s belt.

She let’s Dani thread the wire through her shirt, fixing her gaze on a patch of grass nearby while she waits. After, she clips the mic to Dani’s collar, trying not to overthink the way Dani’s eyes roam over her face. They’re a little too close for comfort, but, somehow, she doesn’t feel any better about the whole thing when she backs away. She wonders how many steps she’d have to take away from Dani in order to feel normal again.

Part of her is worried there would never be enough.

“So, WGC, huh?” she asks, trying to make idle conversation. With the way the camera crew is run, it’ll be a little while before anyone is ready for actual filming. “What brought you here?”

“Um, the cost of living, actually,” Dani tells her. “Only thirty minutes from the city, too, so—”

“Right, you’re a school teacher,” Jamie says, remembering her answer to Theo’s question three days before. 

For some reason, Dani seems surprised by this. “Yeah,” she says. “You remembered.”

Jamie can’t decide what’s more heartbreaking—the expression on Dani’s face that seems to say she’s not used to people remembering things she’s said or the way the awe in her voice has made hope begin to unfurl in her own chest.

She bites the inside of her cheek, tells herself to get a grip. How is it that she’s only meeting this girl for the second time and she’s already walking such a dangerous line?

“Jamie!” someone calls from by the vans. It’s Horace, waving her over.

“I should…” she says, nodding her head in his direction. 

“Right,” Dani says with a smile that makes Jamie’s heart flip. “Sorry for keeping you.”

“No, don’t be. Really.”

If Dani watches her walk away, Jamie doesn’t look back to see it.

__________

Her house is filled with light—walls painted in pale pastels, shaggy gray carpeting lining the living room floor. There are paintings up on the walls that look like they were bought from somewhere that mass produced them and she has DVD’s lining the shelves of her entertainment center. A blanket thrown over the back of her navy blue sofa. A couple of pairs of Toms lined up perfectly beside the door.

Charlotte makes her way around, asking questions as Dani trails after her, Horace and one of the camera guys close behind. Jamie lingers in the living room, looking over the bookshelf and the records by the record player. She has a copy of Disney’s _Mary Poppins_ set up next to her DVD player and Jamie can’t help but be charmed by that fact.

Most of what Dani owns are classic novels—plenty of Jane Austen and Dickens—but there’s Virginia Woolf scattered in there and even a couple Sarah Waters novels. 

Jamie tries not to read into that too much.

Dani is, after all, vying for a position in a reality TV show where she’ll wind up marrying a man she’s never met.

Key word: man.

Jamie makes herself repeat that word over and over as she stands there, listening to Charlotte and Dani laughing in the kitchen. For reasons she refuses to name, it won’t quite sink in.

__________

They manage to wrap up after about an hour, and Dani visibly relaxes when Charlotte finally leaves her house. 

“You know that thing where kids sometimes set ants on fire with a magnifying glass?” she asks as Jamie helps her with her mic. “That’s what that was like.”

“You’d know a lot about kids, wouldn’t you, Poppins?” Jamie asks and when Dani looks confused, she nods over to her television where the DVD is. 

“Oh,” Dani says, blushing prettily. “It’s a good movie.”

Jamie smirks. “Never said it wasn’t.”

Dani fixes her with the cutest glare Jamie’s ever seen. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”

“I would never,” Jamie says.

Dani scoffs and bumps her in the shoulder with a closed fist. Jamie laughs all the way to the van.

__________

The next day finds her back at Dani’s place, this time with Shirley calling the shots. 

Literally.

She orders the camera guys around, resetting them half a dozen times until she feels she’s got the “perfect angle” to shoot Dani coming in her own front door from work. Dani looks exhausted before they even begin and Jamie has to bite her tongue every time Shirley adjusts her hair or clothes. 

“How many times are we going to have to do this shot?” she asks Jamie as she readjusts herself on her patio furniture, a book open in her lap. “It’s not like I’m actually reading this right now.”

She flaps the book a little. Jamie thinks it might be _Tipping the Velvet_ , but she can’t be sure and doesn’t want to guess. Doesn’t think her poor heart can take much more wishful thinking.

“She gets like this,” Jamie tells her softly. She’s standing on the grass below the porch, resting her arm on the wooden edge, her chin on her arm. Dani is seated above her and the angle is odd, but somehow endearing. “Just...try to look cute and lovelorn and we’ll be out of your hair soon.”

Dani considers this for a moment and then adopts a silly expression, pouting her lips and fluttering her eyelashes with a tilt of her head. “How’s this?” she asks.

Jamie laughs loud enough to catch Shirley’s attention and she gives the older woman an apologetic smile. Eventually, Shirley goes back to whatever it is she’s scribbling on her clipboard. Jamie turns back to Dani. “You look perfect,” she says.

“Yeah?” Dani asks, biting her lip to rein in her smile. 

Jamie nods. Doesn’t even hesitate. “Yeah. Perfect. Chin up, Poppins.”

They manage to get it in the next take and Jamie tries not to feel like she played a hand in that. Even if Dani looks calmer, seems more at-ease. It has nothing to with their conversation, Jamie tells herself.

Thinking it might is unprofessional. Really, she’s asking for trouble, isn’t she?

__________

“Why didn’t you warn me that they were going to be poking through my things?” Owen asks the moment he comes out of the kitchen carrying her food. He’s very clearly trying to look like he means business, but it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s got his sous chef hat on.

“Usually the host brings the food out, y’know,” she says, trying not to laugh.

“Arthur came ’round today for the at-home and insisted on getting a tour,” he explains. “Got a good look at my briefs and then questioned my taste in movies.”

“You own two copies of _Ghost Rider_ ,” Jamie reminds him. “What did you expect?”

Owen sighs. “Would you like to know the best vitamin friendship, Jamie?”

Jamie groans, already knowing where this is going. “No. Absolutely not.”

“B-1.” 

He looks so goddamned pleased with himself.

“I’m gonna hit you.” She reaches for the bag of her carry-out that she ordered—via a quick-fire text to him—but he holds it up out of reach. 

“Always so violent,” he admonishes, but he finally lets her have it. As she takes it, his expression grows serious. “Is the home visit a good thing, then?” he asks.

There’s that question again.

She wants to ask him how he might define good, but knows how bitter that would come across.

“Yes,” she says. “It’s good. Can I go home?”

“Sure, sure,” he says, waving her off. “That’s some of my best work by the way,” he says, pointing at the bag in her hands. “Very proud of that cod.”

“Congratulations,” Jamie tells him, rolling her eyes. “Always good to know your worth.”

She turns to leave, too bone-weary to handle much more of this. On her way out, she hears him yell, “I really appreciate our friend-chip!”

She resists the urge to flip him off and settles for letting the door to the restaurant swing shut a little too hard.

__________

Standing in a bright room listening to three people discuss the merits of making two people get married for hours is a special brand of torture. It’s made even more special by the dirty looks Shirley throws her way every time Jamie has the audacity to look bored. 

She’s been sitting in the corner, monitoring the mics, for so long that she’s fairly certain her left leg is asleep. When she tries to change her posture to wake it up, Shirley actually shushes her.

“Sorry,” Jamie whispers, though she’s not exactly feeling apologetic.

Shirley shushes her again, pointer finger in front of her lips and everything. When she turns her head, Jamie sticks her tongue out at her.

She’s not particularly proud of it.

“Let me just bring up someone who I really liked: Dani,” Theo is saying from her chair in the center of the room. Jamie kind of hates herself for perking up at the name drop. 

“I love Dani,” Charlotte responds. “She was very sweet and warm and compassionate. A little nervous, but I got the sense from her that it was because she’s not used to opening up to other people. I thought she was remarkable.”

Jamie breathes in deeply, looking between all three experts, trying to gauge where this is going, but she already knows. That endless plummeting feeling in her chest knows too.

“What about Peter and Dani?” Arthur asks. “Peter is really driven and personable. He seemed to also have some stuff in his background that has kept him from really...connecting in the past. And he really has this zest for life that I think might help bring Dani out of her shell a little.”

Peter. Jamie tries to remember what he looks like, but he’s mostly been seeing Arthur and Charlotte, which means he falls under someone else’s jurisdiction. The three crews do work together at times, but, because they spend so many long hours following the couples around, it’s not unusual for many of them to only see the others when they’re doing group dates. Vaguely, she recalls someone tall, fair-haired, handsome. 

Her pulse hiccups a little when she tries to imagine Dani with him. 

“It’s not that I don’t like that match, or that I don’t like Peter,” Charlotte cuts in. “I do. He seems like such a...unique and engaging person. I just worry that he might find Dani to be a little reserved. He expressed a lot of interest in travel and seems very worldly and—”

“Well, Dani’s—” Arthur starts.

“—American,” Charlotte cuts in. “I know. But I worry they’ll have trouble connecting on just that basic social level, and they might wind up closing themselves off if that happens.”

“What about Edmund O’Mara?” Theo asks, and Jamie immediately knows who she means. “He and Dani have similar backgrounds and goals. He’s a little better at expressing himself, I think, and he might be able to help Dani open up a little.”

This settles on the air for a little while. Jamie remembers Edmund—the graduate student from America whose flat had been the size of her living room and twice as messy. She remembers his messy, brown curls and the way they fell into his eyes—his dark-framed glasses and bright smile. She tries to imagine him standing at the end of the aisle, Dani coming towards her, and she can only manage it for a moment before she has to stop.

“I think they could be a really good fit,” Theo says. “I like them together a lot.”

The other two nod and Shirley scribbles frantically on her clipboard and well—

That’s that, then.

__________

After what feels like forever, the other couples are decided upon, and Owen is one of them.

At first, Jamie’s pretty certain she’s fallen asleep and is dreaming, but they keep saying his name, over and over again. Saying the name “Hannah,” too, which she can’t quite place with anyone in particular. There had been so many Hannah’s.

They match Peter with a woman named Rebecca and everyone seems so pleased with these choices, but Jamie can’t feel anything but acute apprehension.

Not just about Owen, but everything.

All of it.

__________

Edmund meets them on the campus of University College, grinning wide and happy and looking like he wants to hug Theo in greeting. He doesn’t, thank God. Instead, he stands there with his bag slung over his shoulder, hands stuffed into his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels while they set up the shot and Jamie gets him hooked up. 

And then they film the whole thing like he’s just randomly happened upon the cameras while walking to class. 

“Dr. Crain, hi,” he greets, hands going right back into his pockets as he comes to a stand-still right in front of her.

“Edmund, good to see you,” Theo says. 

“Great to see you, too.”

He’s handsome. Cheek dimples and all. Jamie looks over his face, wondering what Dani will make of him when she finally sees him. While he’s certainly not Jamie’s type, he seems like a good enough guy. Winning smile and all. He’s got a calm air about him, which is a far cry from the energy she’d felt radiating off Peter Quint the one time she’d met him. 

Maybe they’ll be a good match.

“I wanted to run something by you really quick, if that’s alright,” Theo says. Edmund nods dutifully, waiting nervously. “You might want to know that...you’re getting married. In two weeks.”

Everything stops for a moment. Cars rumble past in the distance. People talk in the quad just up ahead. The wind blows through the grass and the trees. But Edmund stands perfectly still, almost frozen, as the news washes over him.

“Wait,” he says. “Really?”

Theo nods. “Really. We found you a match.”

He laughs, this relieved thing, tossing his head back a little. “Oh my god,” he says. “You’re serious?”

Another nods. “She exists.”

Those words stick in Jamie’s mind as she stands there, just off camera, watching Edmund bounce up and down on his heels excited, firing excited questions at Theo. He uses his hands a lot when he’s loosening up, gesturing with every word he says. He keeps running one of them through his hair like he’s still trying to believe what he’s just been told. 

Jamie realizes that she is, too.

 _She exists_ , she thinks.

Does she ever.

__________

They ambush Dani as she’s leaving the primary school she teaches at. There are a couple of children playing in the playground, a few other teachers walking nearby, and they all stop to gawk at the cameras. In the end, it won’t matter. Their faces will be blurred out eventually anyway.

She looks more than a little surprised to see them and Jamie can’t really blame her for that. It’s not every day that you’re trying to go home and wind up staring down two different cameras and a handful of other people. 

It’s not her job and it’s probably crossing a dozen lines that she really shouldn’t—if not for her job then for herself and her own sanity—but she hurries out of the van she’s in as casually as she can manage and heads toward her. 

“Wow,” Dani says as she approaches. “You’re all...here. Where I work.”

Jamie winces. “Yeah, sorry about that, Poppins. I think Mike tried to call you a few times.” As she speaks, she turns around to look at Mike, the showrunner, who is talking adamantly to Theo as he gets out of the other van.

Dani fumbles with her bag, rifling through it for a moment before pulling out her cell phone. “Oh,” she says, scrolling through the messages. “I don’t usually...have my phone on me in class, so I—” 

“Yeah, that...that makes sense.” Jamie rubs at the back of her neck, feeling more than a little awkward. Now that she’s with Dani again, all she can think about is Edmund and how happy he’d been. How sure and steady and excited. 

It’s easier to picture them together now, even though Jamie would really rather it not be.

“Is this...What is this?” Dani asks, frantically searching the crew and then landing on Jamie again for answers. For reassurance.

“I...technically I can’t say.”

“Oh. So it’s—”

“Can I mic you?” 

Dani nods and they go through the motions that are already second nature. It’s a little more difficult given the blazer that Dani is wearing, but they manage it all the same.

As Jamie pulls away, Dani wraps her hand loosely around Jamie’s wrist to stop her. “Can I ask you something really important?” 

Jamie’s heart flips. She resists the urge to turn her arm over and catch Dani’s hand in her own. “Of course,” she says, her voice coming out a little too rough for her liking.

“Okay,” Dani says and then she takes a deep breath, as if she’s steeling herself for some great confession. “Do I...Do I have anything in my teeth?” She bares her teeth, lips pulled wide, and Jamie can’t help it.

She laughs. “No,” she says, looking them over. “They’re perfect.”

Dani squeezes her wrist. “Don’t laugh at me. I forgot to check after lunch and salads hate me.”

“You look great,” Jamie tells her. “Seriously.”

A look crosses Dani’s eyes then—something actualizing in them that Jamie wants so badly to ask about. She doesn’t get the chance. Mike calls for her and Theo comes over and they have a show to make.

The warmth of Dani’s hand is stolen away by the cool wind. Jamie feels it go.

__________

When Theo breaks the news, Jamie thinks she sees one brief moment of hesitation before it’s replaced by something else. Some kind of forced emotion there that she can’t interpret exactly. 

“Really?” she asks over and over and Theo nods.

Says, “We found you a husband.”

And for all the whims of her imagination—all the foolhardy things she’s let herself think and feel since meeting Dani for the first time the week before—she knows that she is not imagining what happens then.

Dani lifts her eyes and looks straight at Jamie, standing there behind the cameras, arms crossed over her stomach. Her eyes are wide and just the tiniest bit tearful, but not in a way that Jamie is used to seeing when the women on this show find out they’ve been matched. This is something else entirely.

“You found me a husband,” Jamie hears her repeat, the words kind of hushed and unsteady.

“You’re going to be married in two weeks,” Theo says, still playing on what she must be reading as elation. Pure excitement.

“Two weeks,” Dani says and she finally drops her gaze leaving Jamie cold and confused and feeling like her heart might very well burst any moment.

She’s not imagining this, then.

But... _shit._

_Two weeks._

..

  
  



	2. Wedding Prep, Pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so so sorry about the delay. i started this like a jerk and then got slammed bc finals are coming up. but it is here. no worries.
> 
> i wanted to get to the bachelorette parties this chapter, but...i couldn't. gonna get that in the next one. bc DRAMA.
> 
> you might recognize Trish in this chapter. had to give Dani some friends. (Carrie & John both are characters from Hill House, too, but the novel instead—and really it's just their names. they are nothing like how i've written them)
> 
> AHH hope you like it. so excited!

By the time Jamie gets to the pub, Owen is half-way through a mug of beer—tapping his fingers against the tabletop and looking around nervously, his eyes seeking her out the moment she enters.

His frantic stream of text messages the day before told her all about it—about the visit from Dr. Wingrave and the fact that he has a match; that he’s getting married in _two weeks_ and that he’s, basically, freaking out; and all those unspoken things, too, about his father. About his _mother_.

Nadya Sharma. She’s gone now. Jamie had only met her a handful of times before she’d gone, only known her brown eyes and her dark hair; the way she wrapped her son into her arms every time she saw him. The way she cooked enough to feed an army whenever they came around for dinner. Jamie’s last memory of her is in the summer sun, teeth bared in a smile, face bathed in warm light. Waving as Owen backed his car out of her driveway. That happy, easy smile, _oh how she wishes she might see it again, if only for Owen’s sake_ —

(Jamie has lost people. Of course she has. Her mother and her brothers and—)

Anyway: tired she may be, weary from two long days under Shirley’s direction, building a story, plotting out peoples’ _lives_ , and wracked with a longing she shouldn’t own for a woman she doesn’t know—but she is here because Owen is here. 

It’s stuffy in the pub, filled with people having after-work drinks, laughing jovially. Living normally. Because things _are_ normal. Ordinary, even. But not for Owen. He has less than two weeks before he gets married to a stranger. Two weeks until all six people this year do. Until Dani does.

Jamie finds herself counting the days with dread tugging like a knot in her chest each time the number gets smaller.

Owen looks up as she approaches, a sheepish smile on his lips. His hair is styled clean and coiffed, beard trimmed up, tired eyes and he looks younger than Jamie thinks she’s ever seen him look. It’s the uncertainty, perhaps. The unknown drawing near.

What he wants, maybe, but now that he’s gotten a chance at it, it must feel different.

“There you are,” Owen says.

Jamie pulls the chair across from him away from the table. “Yeah, sorry. Traffic.”

It’s not a lie exactly. The bus had been running slower than normal. 

The joy of Friday night crowds.

The waiter comes bobbing through the crowd, his little POS system ready in his hand. He looks too chipper for the way her head has been throbbing since she’d seen Dani last— _two weeks_ —so she orders quickly and sends him on his merry way.

“So,” Owen says once they’re alone again. “What’s new with you?”

Jamie laughs and leans back in her chair, pulling off her jacket and letting it fall behind her, sleeves dangling above the floor. “Not as much as with you apparently.”

Immediately, Owen’s eyes blow wide and his grin grows wider. “They found me a wife! Can you believe it? A _wife_.”

“I can believe it. That’s sorta the whole thing.”

Owen holds a finger up to her. “Don’t mock. My future wife’ll have your head for that.”

There’s an air to him that Jamie almost doesn’t recognize. She can’t remember the last time he looked so happy. “You don’t even know what she’s like,” she argues.

“I don’t need to. I’ll make my case.”

“Sure you will.”

The waiter comes back over then, setting her Coke down on the table and leaving, clearly sensing the energy at the table. Owen eyes the glass as she pulls it over and takes a sip from it, one eyebrow raised. 

“Not drinking?” he asks.

Jamie shakes her head, but doesn’t say the reason why. Doesn’t mention anything about the absolute trainwreck that her mind is rapidly becoming. Worries that, if she does, it will only make it that much more real. Make her that much more pathetic.

“So, two weeks,” she says, changing the subject. Owen grins at the reminder, eager to take the bait. “How’s it feel knowing you’re off the market?”

“Strange,” he tells her. “Hasn’t quite sunk in yet. Kind of afraid it won’t until I’m actually...y’know...up there getting married.”

She doesn’t say: _maybe not even then._

She doesn’t say: _some people never get used to the feeling._

She doesn’t say: _some people don’t even feel it at all._

There’s no need to dampen Owen’s spirits by smacking him over the head with all the reminders of the messy endings a lot of these relationships wind up with. If there’s anyone who deserves for this to work out, it’s him and, hopefully, the woman they’ve matched him with.

She says: “Yeah, it’s wild.”

Takes a well-timed sip from her drink.

There’s a game on the televisions in the separate corners of the bar. A commercial for razors plays. Jamie sort of feels like crying, but she doesn’t. It’s silly.

“What’s she like?” Owen asks next and, when she turns, he’s smiling at her goofily. Warmly. Trying to get her to open up.

She should know better by now, really. Try as she might, she can never quite keep things from Owen. He knows her too well. Sometimes, she thinks, better than she’s ever really known herself. A blessing at times, yes, but dangerous, too. 

Jamie rolls her eyes. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Alright, alright.” He taps his fingers on the tabletop. “What about...her name? Can I have her name?”

“Absolutely _not_.”

“Just initials then.”

“You’re trying to get me fired.”

“Eye color!”

“No.”

“Hair color?”

“ _Owen_.”

“Ring size?”

“Now I know you’re taking the mickey,” Jamie says, letting out a derisive little laugh. “I’m sure Charlotte already got you that.”

It’s said in that patented Owen flippancy, but there’s more than a heavy hint of emotion around the edges of the moment when he takes a long drink of his beer and fixes her with a heavy look. Jamie watches him, waiting for the tension to break, but it doesn’t.

“Gotta go get a suit, then,” she tries, hoping to spark something else to keep them afloat.

And Owen is looking at her—really looking at her—in a way that makes her feel vulnerable, weak. All of her out on display. “It’s going to be weird without you there,” he says, and Jamie isn’t entirely sure what she’s supposed to do with that. “Rob’ll probably encourage me to buy something awful.”

Rob. Owen’s honorary best man since Jamie won’t even be able to attend his wedding. 

She feels guilty about it, the emotion pressing against the edges of her fingertips and hot down her throat. Like she has to cough or cry. Or both. “You can text me,” she offers, knowing it’s not the same. “Contract doesn’t say anything about texting.”

What she loves about Owen is this:

Despite the situation, he doesn’t even let it halt his stride. He just smiles and shakes his head.

“You’re gonna regret saying that,” he tells her, as if they’re strangers to one another. As if they haven’t been all the other has for so long that Jamie can hardly remember a time before. “I’m gonna take you up on that.”

Jamie grins. Lets the tension drain away as much as it can for now. “You’re on.”

____________

Jamie is double-checking the mics around Dani’s apartment when Dani knocks on the frame of her own open front door, throwing her a sheepish smile. She looks different than Jamie has been remembering in the few days they’ve been apart. Her hair is let down, wavy and falling cleanly on her shoulders rather than pulled back. Her blouse is clean and ironed and unbuttoned a little to reveal the pale skin of her sternum. 

Something else, too. Some ache in her eyes that Jamie can’t qualify.

“Sorry,” Dani says and Jamie can’t get over the way it sounds. How clean and careful. “I’m not interrupting am I?”

“Of course not,” Jamie says. “Just finishing up.” She nods to the front door. “All good out there?”

Dani nods, but doesn’t answer. She is new to this whole process—to being filmed at all and especially being asked to share so much of her personal life to a camera. Even more so today, what with her friends coming around.

“What can I do?” Jamie says next. Not a question. A request.

 _Please let me help with whatever you need_.

Dani perks up at this, catching Jamie’s eyes. “Um...No, I don’t... _need_ anything. I just wanted to see…” She stops and clears her throat, looking like she’s trying to center herself. “Is it silly to ask how you’re doing? I mean...I just wanted to catch up. I know we’re not—”

“Poppins,” Jamie cuts in. “Breathe.” 

Dani listens, nodding slowly, and trying to steady herself. “Right. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. It’s nice that you care. Not many folks who come on this show think much about us sound people, lurking in the shadows.”

She throws Horace, who is in the corner on his phone, an apologetic look, but he doesn’t glance up at her. And Jamie has known him long enough to understand that it’s not that he isn’t listening—it’s that he’s giving them space. Privacy. 

As much as he can, at least.

Dani seems taken aback by this. “Oh. Um...I care.” She lets this linger for a moment and then rushes on. “It’s good,” she says, “that you’re good.”

Jamie hums. “What about you? Doin’ alright?”

Dani nods one too many times to be convincing. “I’m okay. You know, um...Great, actually.” She sighs. Pauses. “Perfect.”

If there were time, Jamie would ask for the truth. She’d press for a real answer and not some slowly escalating embellishment. But there isn’t time. Shirley waltzes in with her headset on, followed by two camera people and three others who must be Dani’s friends.

Jamie stands to the side while she waits for everything to be set up—for Shirley to get everyone into position—eyeing Dani from across the room. It’s strange, really, how easily she slips into an overly-chipper attitude. Whereas she was just unsure and a little sad, even, and now she’s smiling. Laughing at something one of her friends is saying. Nodding emphatically to Shirley’s instructions.

Once or twice, her eyes catch Jamie’s and there’s something there that Jamie knows she is not imagining.

She just isn’t sure what to call it yet.

____________

“You’re Jamie, right?” 

Jamie looks up from the mic pack she’s just pulled off the other woman—Dani’s best friend—and frowns a little, nodding her head. She doesn’t remember introducing herself.

“Yeah,” she says tentatively.

The woman, Trish, seems to pick up on it, at least. “Wow, that probably seemed next-level stalkerish, didn’t it?” she asks and Jamie laughs at her bluntness. Shakes her head. “Dani mentioned you.” As she says the other woman’s name, she jerks a thumb over her shoulder in the direction where Dani is standing talking to Shirley.

“Oh,” Jamie says. “Um…”

Trish pushes right past any awkwardness and thrusts a hand out for Jamie to shake, which she does. “Trish,” she says, then laughs at herself. “You already knew that.”

“Right.” 

It’s not a great day for communication, apparently.

“Look, can I ask you something? Off the record?”

Jamie pulls back a little, glancing around at their surroundings, but they’re pretty much alone. Everyone else on the crew is too busy getting set up for Dani’s call with her mother, hardly paying them any mind at all. 

“I’m not a reporter,” she says. “But sure.”

“Funny _and_ cute.” Trish bites her lip and shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “Dani wasn’t kidding.”

Said so easily. As if it won’t make the ground slip from beneath Jamie’s feet. As if it doesn’t turn the entire world on its axis. Make her feel sea-bound and sloshing. And then, just as instantly, angry with herself for letting something so insignificant get to her.

Still, she has to know:

“Wait, Dani said—”

But Trish cuts her off, too eager to say her piece, rushing on with:

“This whole thing is…crazy.” A shake of her head. A long sigh. “I don’t...I’ve tried to talk Dani out of it every step of the way, but...I mean, if she got this far…”

For a moment, Jamie worries that Trish is about to ask her to strong-arm Dani out of this whole thing, despite the contract the other woman has already signed. 

Instead, Trish says, “Can you just...keep an eye on her? She...I love her, but I’m just worried that this is going to get…”

Jamie thinks about Trish’s talking head they just filmed. Her standing out on Dani’s front lawn saying: _I’m excited for her_ and _of course I really want to meet her husband but_ and _Dani’s my best friend_. 

“And I know it’s your job or...But Dani really made it seem like you’re one of...the good ones.” Trish winces. Says, “Sorry,” then clears her throat. “And you have kindness in your eyes. _Real_ kindness.”

She doesn’t say: _I’ve seen the way you look at her_.

But still. Close enough.

Jamie imagines sinking into the ground. 

“I just...wanna make sure she’s okay throughout this whole...process.”

This whole thing feels wrong. Off, somehow. Her and Trish are strangers. Really, her and _Dani_ are strangers, too. But she’s on the spot. Really, she is, and Dani is just across the yard, frowning into nod after nod as Shirley rambles on and—

She nods. Meets Trish’s eyes. Says, “Yeah,” then, “Of course.”

Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

____________

Dani’s mother is almost _too_ excited by the news. Her image is a little grainy on her daughter’s laptop screen, the long distance and the wifi doing their level best to make the whole thing that much harder to film. 

Shirley is irate. Jamie is exhausted.

And Dani…

Dani is acting. Smiling as her mother rambles on about how _happy_ she is. Crying a little, yes, but Jamie can’t stop thinking about the way Trish hugged her when she first told her and her other friends. That grip-tight _I’m sorry_ as Dani buried her face into Trish’s shoulder and Trish’s eyes closing. Hugging her back.

Asking Jamie to keep an eye on her. To _help_.

Jamie’s in too deep. She knows it. She has since that first meeting with Dani—when those pretty, blue eyes met her own and those pink lips quirked up into the first genuine smile that’d ever been turned Jamie’s way.

But now—

Now she thinks she might not be the only one who’s in trouble.

____________

Owen goes with a blue suit. He sends a picture after an hour of text-after-text, asking all sorts of questions while Jamie struggled to keep up. Frantically texted Rob in an attempt to steer him away from the huge, blue bowtie Owen first texted her a picture of with an emoji of a confused face.

It looks good. Makes his eyes stand out behind his glasses. He looks smart. Adult. 

Jamie pictures him at the end of the aisle. Feels pride swell in her chest, then feels it drain away into something more melancholy. More grieving.

Texts him a simple, _You look good!_ because it’s the simplest truth she can manage.

____________

“Are you ready?” 

“Yes, I told you that!”

“I just want to make sure you’re, like...actually ready though.”

“We are. Oh, my God, Dani. Come on! Some of us are falling asleep.”

“What?”

“Well...John is.” A thump. A muffled curse. “Now he’s awake.”

“Ow, _Jesus,_ Trish.” 

“You should know better.”

“Okay, whatever, I’m coming out.”

The dressing room door tucked away in the little alcove outside the area they’re set up in opens and Dani finally steps out, a vision in white and lace. From where she’s leaned against the wall by a rack of dresses, Jamie perks up, eyes automatically tracing the dip of the dress on Dani’s chest and the line of her neck, the bare skin of her shoulders revealed from the thin straps. Her hair is pulled back with this hideous purple scrunchie, but Dani still manages to look like an angel somehow.

Apparently, her friends seem to think so, too.

Carrie–the dark-haired one who usually stays out of the other two’s antics—bounces up and down in her seat, clapping her hands together. “Oh, Dani...You look so pretty!”

“Really?” Dani asks, looking down at the dress. She has yet to actually view herself in any of the mirrors surrounding her. 

“Really!” Carrie says. “Guys…” She smacks the side of John’s thigh and the man jumps a little.

“Why am I the punching bag today?” he whines, looking over at Carrie. When she gives him a pointed look, he turns his attention back to Dani. “Speaking as someone who actually knows about wedding dresses, let me just say that you are...pulchritudinous.”

Trish rolls her eyes so hard it looks like it hurts. “Such an English teacher,” she gripes. “But Dani...seriously...Speaking as the only one here who’s attracted to women... _wow_.”

Dani has an interesting reaction to this. It starts with the tip of her ears turning red, and then she’s gripping the fabric of the dress’s skirt too tight as the blush brushes down her cheeks and chest. 

“I don’t know,” she begins, trailing off at the end, but then Carrie gets to her feet.

She’s a little shorter than Dani, especially because she’s not standing on the slightly elevated walkway that juts out from the dressing rooms. Her head hovers somewhere above Dani’s waist, but she can still grab the other woman’s hand and tug her forward, closer to the mirror. 

“Look,” she says, pointing, and Dani finally does.

Her eyes widen at the sight of herself, biting her lip so hard it looks like it hurts. Not for the first time, Jamie wonders exactly how often it is that Dani feels good about herself and how she looks. Based on her usual body language, she’s sure it isn’t too often. But today is an outlier. 

The _dress_ is an outlier. 

Dani looks elegant.

“It _is_ really pretty,” she says.

“Told you!” John crows.

“Calm down,” Trish tells him. “We _all_ told her.”

He pouts, sinking down into the bright white couch they’re sharing. 

“Whoever you’re marrying,” Carrie begins, “he’s gonna _flip_ when he sees you like this.”

And doesn’t _that_ have an interesting effect? Not one that Jamie can say—at this point—she didn’t see coming, but interesting nonetheless. Dani’s shoulders jump up a little and then her posture stiffens. She is still looking into the mirror, but she looks frozen now. Stuck in time at the reminder.

“I’m about ready to marry you,” Trish says. “Screw the husband.”

Shirley bounces on her heels as Trish says this, clearly excited about the line. There’s no doubt that it will end up in the final cut. According to Shirley, audiences love that sort of thing—the diversity in sexual orientation as far as the friend groups go, as well as the organic banter. The familiarity. Having both is practically the jackpot for her.

Jamie remembers Edmund just that morning, in his khaki blazer and white shirt. He’d gone with a bow tie and suspenders. Bold, as his university friends told him. And Edmund laughed. Said, _I have to make an impression, right_? 

Jamie wished someone had said that nothing will make more of an impression on someone you don’t know than meeting them at your wedding. But they hadn’t. They’d simply laughed and clapped Edmund on the back like it was some great victory won—something he _earned_ and hadn’t stumbled his way into. It’s not new to wonder if the couples that are chosen would have found each other without experts matching them together, but Jamie finds herself especially preoccupied with it when it comes to Dani and Edmund.

Part of her understands what it is that made Theo and the others think they’d be such a good match. On paper, they have a lot in common: a shared interest in education, similar family values, similar dating histories, and interests. But it’s so hard to picture the two of them actually being anywhere near each other and Jamie isn’t sure why that is.

Hopes it has nothing to do with the swirling vortex of emotions that Dani can stir up just by being nearby. Just by trying on a wedding dress in front of her friends, three cameras, and a host of production staff. 

She doesn’t look up at Jamie from across the room, but, for a moment, Jamie finds herself wishing she would. Imagines what she might find in Dani’s eyes. 

Confirmation, perhaps, of whatever it is that she thinks might be buzzing between them. Or else nothing. Blankness. No fondness or uncertainty at all.

Jamie isn’t sure which she’d be able to live with better.

____________

Things happen quickly. One moment, Dani is standing there in a wedding dress, and the next Jamie is shaking hands with Owen’s fiancée for the first time and miking a jewelry shop while Shirley speaks to all three brides separately two days later. 

Dani is shaky when Jamie hooks her up to a mic, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as her eyes dart around the shop. “Is it weird that I’m nervous?” she asks and Jamie looks up at her.

“Nervous about what?” 

Imagines: _getting married._

Or: _getting married to a stranger_.

Or—less likely—maybe: _you touching me like this._

What she gets: “Meeting the other girls. I mean...it’s like high school or something. What if they don’t like me?”

She looks genuinely terrified. Seventeen-year-old Dani must have been quite the sight. Jamie’s chest aches a little with longing at the thought.

“’Course not,” she says. “But they’ll like you. Trust me.”

Dani nods like she believes her for a moment, then says, “Right, but what if they don’t?”

And it’s more than a little unprofessional, but Jamie can’t help it. Her relationship is made of quiet moments away from the cameras where they catch up, try to talk normally, end up, maybe, brushing things that are better left unsaid with their toes.

There is Trish, too, to consider and the request she’d made. 

_Keep an eye on her_. As if Jamie has any choice.

Maybe she has one. Maybe she makes it when she places a hand on Dani’s arm and squeezes lightly through the fabric of her jacket. 

“They’ll love you,” Jamie says, and there’s a note to it like she already knows what that’s like and she’d be nervous about that except—

Except Dani exhales. Nods. Says, “Okay,” like she believes it.

____________

They do, of course. Everything about Dani screams to be loved and the other two women must sense it too. Hannah shakes Dani’s hand in both of her own. Calls her “dear” and “love” right out the gate. Like they’ve known each other for years. Rebecca hugs Dani in greeting and then loops her arm through Dani’s like they’re already the best of friends.

From her position in the corner, Jamie smiles. Breathes a little easier. Watches as Dani begins to relax.

“It’s so nice to know that I’m not just...crazy and on my own,” Rebecca is saying as the three of them stand near the doorway, the sunlight streaming in through the glass windows. 

Jamie tries to look at all of them. Tries to especially look Hannah over. Imagine her next to Owen. But it’s distracting with the way the light hits Dani’s hair, the side of her face. 

“Yeah, it’s been...weird,” Dani agrees. “I know that he’s doing the same sort of things, but it’s really strange doing this without him here. Whoever he is.” She laughs a little awkwardly. 

Rebecca joins in, nodding in agreement. 

Eventually, the shop clerk guides them over to look at their options.

Hannah is mostly quiet, says a few things here and there, but sticks to herself for the most part. Has a pretty laugh. Seems to think Dani’s goofiness is charming enough. All good signs, Jamie thinks.

( _It was a little strange, actually,_ Dani will say later when it’s just her on camera outside the shop. _I mean, the only thing I know about him is the size of his finger. I don’t...It’s weird._ )

“So, what about this one?” Rebecca asks, pointing to a shiny, silver band set out on the counter for them to look at. 

“Oh, that’s a nice one, dear,” Hannah says. “Simple. Not too flashy.”

 _Simple. Classic._

Owen will like that, Jamie notes. He likes things that are uncomplicated. Sincere. Hannah seems to be on that page, too.

Rebecca, however, hums consideringly, rolling her nails across the glass display case. “Is it wrong that I kind of want it to be flashy?” she asks. “Noticeable?” 

Dani smiles, all teeth and good will. “Why?” 

“So people know he’s taken,” she says, laughing at herself. “Oh, that does sound bad, doesn’t it?”

Hannah is laughing, too, and shaking her head. She’s graceful, Jamie notices. In everything she does. The way she holds herself, the way she speaks. Even in the way she looks over potential wedding bands.

Jamie likes her already.

“No, no,” Dani tells her, waving the idea off. “Stake your claim.” She laughs in this bubbling kind of way that makes Jamie sigh. Press her lips together.

There’s another team with the men right now. Jamie’s expecting a run-down from Owen as soon as he’s free enough to text her. She wonders what Edmund is looking at right now for Dani. Wonders if it’s something gaudy or golden. Covered in little diamonds. 

She can’t imagine anything like that on Dani’s hand. Doesn’t like trying to, even.

( _I just hope he...likes what I got him,_ Dani will say. _It’s...I guess I’ll see at the altar, right?_ )

“Hannah,” Dani is saying now, calling the other woman over to a line of dark metals, “what do you think of these?”

She’s the only one who doesn’t seem to have an idea of what she wants to get. Keeps asking what the other two think. 

And Jamie knows that this is getting out of hand quickly. That she needs to pump the break soon or risk flying off the cliff entirely. 

She tries not to read into every little sign of hesitation. Tries. Really.

Fails.

____________

After, Jamie tears everything down with Horace’s help. Listens as Shirley rambles on to one of the producers by the van. Shares a commiserating look with one of the camera guys who’d spent the first half-hour of the shoot being corrected nonstop and redirected by Shirley.

Outside, the girls are still talking to one another. Chatting and laughing and Dani is looking genuine and completely unfettered for the first time all week. Leaning back against the van, Jamie watches them idly, trying to make herself look away every few seconds or else be completely mesmerized by what the wind is doing to the curled ends of Dani’s hair.

They catch eyes for a moment and Dani waves, this small thing that shouldn’t make Jamie’s hands sweat the way they do.

It’s ruined a moment later when Shirley comes over in a flurry, instructing the crew to go to the cafe they’ve rented out for the afternoon. Tearing Jamie from her thoughts, from wondering what Dani’s hair would feel like between her fingers.

The first good thing she’s done all day, maybe. Jamie’s not sure. 

____________

Later. Afternoon mimosas. A table in the center of the restaurant. They edge around anything too meaningful or deep because none of them really know one another yet—are still trying to feel out themselves in this strange situation; don’t have the mental capacity, maybe, to feel out anyone else. 

But that’s fine. Just fine. This is only the second year that the experts have encouraged these pre-wedding meet-ups between the brides and the grooms, so no one is quite sure what they should be expecting from it quite yet. 

Horace holds his boom steady and Jamie hangs around in the back like always. Listens through her headphones, mostly, as Hannah talks about her previous marriage. Frowns a little, thinking of Owen. But, no matter. After all, she has a crush on an engaged woman she works with. How is that any better?

Really, she thinks, it’s worse.

Rebecca splutters through an apology, having assumed, rather flippantly, that they were all new to the wedding process. Hannah waves her off, pushes around the pastry on her plate. Rebecca takes a long pull from her drink and then turns her attention to Dani.

“What do your parents think about all this?” she asks. “Mine were...Let’s just say they’re a little... _nervous_ about this whole thing.”

Dani laughs, a little forced. “Um...It’s just my mom, actually. My dad passed away when I was younger.”

Another spluttered apology.

“Well, I’m two for two, aren’t I?” Rebecca jokes. “If you guys have anything else from your past that I can force you to discuss on television, let me know.”

More laughter. It’s a good enough afternoon for this. For all sorts of things, really. There’s a stinging edge of possibility in the air.

Dani sips at her mimosa. Seemingly winces at the taste of it. “I think I’m okay for now,” she says. “But I’ll keep you posted.”

The words come out funny. Jamie’s not sure why.

____________

Jamie has six text messages from Owen when she gets a free moment to herself. She’s standing a little way from the door to the cafe, smoking a cigarette as Horace finishes packing everything up in the van. Three of them are just pictures of the most ridiculous and bawdy looking rings Jamie’s ever seen. The next two are numbers that she assumes are prices, though they seem a little too boggling to be that. 

The last one just reads, _Got it!_ with a picture of a simple silver band. A light purple gem in the middle. Not too flashy. Classic.

Jamie grins. Wants to tell him so badly that she thinks Hannah—based on everything she’d said in the jeweler’s—will love it, but can’t. Settles for, _that’s a good one_ , and leaves it at that.

It’s a good enough distraction for the moment. Her chest feels sore from the strain of the day—from her heart being tugged back and forth for silly reasons. Reasons that she can’t voice aloud or even think about too long because she has felt lost and helpless so many times in her life, but not like this. Never like this.

And it isn’t as if she’s ever been a _planner_ , per se, but she’s really trying her best not to think about the future. To think only of this moment. This second. The burning ache of smoke in her lungs. 

Not Dani and the way she smiles, the way she laughs with her whole body. The way her eyebrows furrow when she’s lost in thought, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth and—

“Hey,” says someone beside her and Jamie jumps, her half-burned cigarette falling from her fingers and landing on the pavement. 

“ _Shit_ ,” she curses and then looks up to find Dani watching her with wide, apologetic eyes. “Lord, Poppins.”

“Sorry,” Dani says, wincing. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Jamie shakes her head, kicks the heel of her sneaker down on the glowing edge of the fallen cigarette, snubbing it out. “You’re good. Just...Just jumpy.” She looks up again. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, I just...wanted to say hi.” Dani stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jackets, shifting her weight again nervously.

Jamie wants to reach out and steady her with her own hands. Instead, she pulls her cigarette pack from her own pocket and gets another. Puts it between her lips and ignites it with her lighter. Takes a pull. 

All before finally saying, “Hi.”

“Long day,” Dani says next. “I’m not sure how you do this all the time.” 

“You’ll get used to it,” Jamie tells her. 

“I hope so.” 

There’s a strange note to her voice that Jamie puzzles over. She has barely known Dani for two weeks and there are so many things she wants to _learn_. Right now, it’s frustrating to think that it could mean just about anything and she’d be none the wiser.

(Something Jamie will not let herself consider: that note is yearning.)

“Could I…?” Dani starts and, when Jamie looks up, Dani is gesturing awkwardly at her cigarette. “Obviously, you don’t have to—”

Oh.

“Sure you don’t mind?” Jamie asks. “I might have cooties or somethin’.”

Dani laughs, the sound catching her off guard. “I think I’ll risk it,” she says and Jamie hands the cigarette over. Dani lifts it to her lips and inhales. The way the smoke comes curling out from between her lips is one of the most lovely things Jamie thinks she’s ever seen.

She feels like a child for the excitement she feels at knowing her own lips had been touching that same cigarette only moments before. There’s something unspoken in the way they’re looking at each other, and there has been, maybe, every time they’ve shared a moment like this. But now? It _floors_ Jamie suddenly. Makes her feel completely off-kilter.

There’s something to the way Dani is looking at her that says she’s just as surprised.

Jamie thinks of Trish. Thinks of Dani in the jewelry shop and in the cafe. Dani _acting_ happy because there’s no way real happiness would seem so intentional and calculated. 

“How are you doing with all this?” Jamie asks before she loses the nerve. 

The buzzing silence of the street—just the distant murmurings of conversation between the crew, between the producers and the other two brides—is deafening. It’s just the two of them standing there, being who they can be in that moment. “I’m okay,” Dani says and it’s not at all convincing, but Jamie doesn’t press. “Really.”

It’s expected. 

“Good, Well...I’m here if you need to...if you need anything,” Jamie says, trying to sound as steady as she can, but Dani is too close—

( _isn’t that the root of the problem, really?_ )

—and she wonders if Dani can hear the wavering there in the word, too. Thinks maybe she can because there’s a kernel of something in her eyes now. Something warm and bright, and it throws Jamie off-balance because, for the life of her, she has no idea what it could be.

“Yeah?” Dani asks, like she just needs another confirmation. Just one more piece of truth before she lets herself believe it.

Jamie nods and takes her cigarette back. “Swear it,” she says and lets herself consider—really _consider_ —how much she means it.

..


	3. Wedding Prep, Pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am completely incapable of writing short chapters for this fic. i'd apologize, but i don't wanna.
> 
> sorry for the wait! hopefully i can start updating this more frequently now that the semester is over.
> 
> just a reminder that this is a bit of a slow burn. so sorry! it will be worth the wait, tho, so enjoy the ride with me. it's gonna be funnnn.
> 
> and apologies for any mistakes. it's super late and my beta is busy...will fix later.

As far as interrogations go, Owen is surprisingly belligerent in asking about his mystery fiancée. That first night after shopping for wedding rings, he calls Jamie late and wine drunk, asking for details over the day on the ring, on her personality. Anything that might fill in details to whatever vague expectation he’s already begun to form.

It gets worse as the days go on. Pretty soon, he’s calling with more specific questions—texting them to her when he’s supposed to be working and she’s supposed to be getting these prepared for the bachelor and bachelorette parties.

_Did she have a nice perfume on?_

_Did she mention if she’s allergic to anything?_

_Does she play any instruments?_

_Is she expecting_ **_me_ ** _to be able to play any instruments?_

_Ballroom or salsa dancer? Or neither?_

Eventually, she gets tired of typing, _I can’t tell you,_ and, _I don’t know_ , over and over and starts making up answers instead. 

_Yes. Smelled like what I expect Julie Andrews smells like._

_She’s allergic to dumb questions._

_She plays a mean triangle._

_Says she wants a lad that’ll rock the wind chimes._

_She teaches freestyle dancing._

But then Owen starts showing up at her door, bribes in the form of alcohol and food in arm, and she lets him air his grievances, his concerns and worries. Does her best to reassure him because the thing is:

Hannah really might be a good fit for him.

All Owen has to do is lean into it, and he’s never been good at that.

She thinks she could probably teach him a thing or two about it. After all, there’s no other way to describe the way she’s let whatever this _thing_ with Dani is take her away.

Well, maybe one other way.

Absolutely _fucked_.

___________

It’s exactly one day before the weddings will take place.

The crew and producers have spent the last week rushing around like headless chickens, trying to bring everything together and make it perfect before the deadline. It’s a headache every season, which seems a little silly because they do this every year, right? At some point, one might think they should have a set plan in place, but they never seem to.

Jamie spends her time working over the footage for the Matchmaking Special with the sound design crew, making sure everything can be cleaned up properly without an re-recording. What free time she has is evenly split between her conversations with Owen and actively trying to keep herself from wondering and worrying about all things Dani. 

Normally, work would be the sort of thing she could throw herself into in order to escape unwanted thoughts—especially ones pertaining to a girl—but the exact opposite is true this time around. Now, work _is_ Dani. She’s everywhere at once. Jamie couldn’t escape her if she tried.

Her name is on the lips of the producers and the experts. It’s written in black Sharpie on thick binders in Shirley’s office and labelled neatly on two separate mic packs in Jamie’s things. A picture of her taken during the first round of interviews is blown up and plastered on the walls of the experts' discussion set, right next to a similar picture of her soon-to-be husband. There are people sent to retrieve her dress from the shop and set it up in her wedding prep hotel suite. Crew members decorate one of the large halls in the hotel with flowers picked out by her. A giant poster board with her guest list handwritten is set up in the hall by the chairs beside a seating chart for the reception. On the other side is a list of people for Edmund, most of whom share his last name. 

It’s a lot. Too much. More than plenty.

Jamie doesn’t think she could handle anymore. She can barely handle what already exists.

Which is why she finds herself chain smoking outside Dani’s house the evening before the wedding. The rest of the crew is bustling around, getting things ready for the bachelorette party, and the limousine is already on standby, parked to the side of the road with its hazard lights on. She’s spent the last hour with the camera crew figuring out their shots for the drive and hiding her microphones around the interior of the seating area accordingly, which has resulted in a dull, aching thump of pain at the base of her skull that won’t go away despite the extra jolt of nicotine.

Inside the house, Dani and her friends are still getting ready. Soon, Jamie will be sent in to make sure they’re all miked properly, but, for now, she’s just trying to calm down and keep her mind from wandering too much. 

She keeps reminding herself that it’s not like _she’s_ the one who’s getting married in twenty-four hours. The nausea batting its way through her stomach, throat, and head seems to be convinced otherwise.

Back in London, Owen will be getting all set up for his bachelor party with Rob and some of his friends from work and uni. From here on out, Jamie knows that they’ll hardly even have time to see one another. He’ll be too busy being married and filmed 24/7 and she’ll be too busy doing the filming for someone else.

She misses Owen. Wishes she had someone to talk to about this ridiculous _thing_ her heart’s decided to do, but the last thing she wants to do is add any more stress to whatever it is that Owen’s already feeling. Even if she had the opportunity to say anything to him about it, she doesn't think she would. She’s just going to have to shoulder it on her own.

The front door of Dani’s house opens and Shirley steps out, looking around at the dozen or so crew members standing around. Her eyes finally settle on Jamie and she gestures, waving her over. With a long-suffering sigh, Jamie takes one last drag of her cigarette and then drops it to the pavement of Dani’s driveway, using the toe of her trainers to flatten out any lingering sparks. 

It’s going to be a long night.

That’s what she thinks to herself as she makes her way to the front stoop, trying to mentally prepare herself for whatever is waiting for inside. She’s going to have to be ready to deal with the long drive to London, and then the long hours of flitting between whatever club has been chosen for the party on top of it. Better she understand that now.

One of the sound guys on Hannah’s team said something about filming at a vineyard for the bride’s party. A nice, quiet affair with Hannah and her friends, who are probably all a lot like her. She envies the idea of that for more than one reason.

At least, she does for as long as it takes her to step into Dani’s home and lay eyes on the other woman.

After the whole wedding dress thing, she’d thought she’d be prepared for just about anything. But she’s wrong again because Dani is wearing this yellow, collared dress that tapers at her waist, a thin black bow tied around it, and the dress flares out from there, striped with paler yellow and light grays. It floats around her, bobbing against the skin below her knees as she shifts her weight with a laugh at something her friend, John, is saying and it would maybe make her look like a housewife from the fifties if it wasn’t for her long hair curled around her shoulders and her choice in shoes.

Jamie’s eyes catch on the pale skin of her legs, the bones of her ankles, and the shimmering grey of the heels she’s wearing. She’s gorgeous. Ridiculously. Jamie can feel her breath stuttering in her lungs and, yeah.

This is a really bad idea.

“Hey!” Dani says once she sees Jamie standing there, the door swinging shut behind her. She steps around John and takes a few steps in Jamie’s direction, oblivious to the way Jamie has to tear her eyes away from the shape of her waist. “Hi, again. It’s good to see you.”

“You, too,” Jamie says, then clears her throat. “You look...really nice.”

Dani blinks, looking a bit surprised at the compliment. “Oh. Thank you. So do...so do you.”

This makes Jamie laugh. “Just take the compliment,” she says, glancing down at her sweater and jeans, her worn, black trainers. “No need to lie.”

“Hey!” Dani admonishes. “I don’t lie.”

Jamie quirks an eyebrow. “Whatever you say.”

The exchange lingers in the air for a moment, and then Jamie lifts one of her mic packs up—the one with Dani’s name stickered across it. Nodding, Dani stands still as Jamie pulls everything she needs out of her sound bag and gets it all ready. Thankfully, the collar of Dani’s dress means she can clip it rather than having to tape it to somewhere a little more awkward for her to touch.

Like Dani’s cleavage, for instance.

It takes a bit of maneuvering, but her and Dani manage to get the cord threaded through Dani’s dress to the back, where Jamie clips the mic pack to the tie around her waist. Somewhere in the middle of it, Jamie’s fingers brush a little too intimately against Dani’s hip and Dani leans into it for a moment before pulling away.

“Careful,” she teases when she turns around, her chest flushed with an emotion Jamie is trying very hard to ignore within herself. “I’m engaged, you know.”

Jamie swallows. Hard. Says, “I actually think I knew that,” in a way that she hopes doesn’t give away the way she’s shaking. 

Fortunately, Dani doesn’t see her wiping her palms on her jeans before going to mike the others. Jamie only knows she misses it because Dani is too busy staring at Jamie’s lips at the time.

A funny thing, really. She may be fucked, but she’s starting to think she might not be the only one.

____________

Jamie sits dutifully with her shotgun microphone in a seat close to the partition between them and the driver. Despite the cliche, the limo is really too small for anything other than the four subjects, one camera guy and Jamie, headphones plugged into her mixer and eyes fixed on the floor rather than on Dani.

“This is your last night as a single lady!” John says, a pitch too loud for Jamie, who winces and turns the gain for his input down on her mixer. “How do you feel?”

“I…” Dani begins, looking a little nervous, “I don’t know. It hasn’t sunk in yet?”

John looks like he wants to ask a follow up question, but Trish cuts him off by popping open a bottle of champagne. There are glasses set up on the mostly-empty, LED-lit mini bar on one side of the limo and she leans over awkwardly to grab one of them, filling it up until foam threatens to bulge off its rim. 

“Here, drink this,” she says, handing the glass to Dani, “and stop looking like someone just told you your cat died.”

Dani frowns. “I don’t have a cat.”

“Which is another reason to stop being all quiet and moody. Drink!” She pushes the hand Dani has wrapped around the glass until Dani concedes and takes a long drink from it. 

“I wonder what your mystery man is doing tonight,” Carrie muses. “Hopefully nothing involving strippers.”

Dani’s nose wrinkles. “Oh, God,” she says, then takes another drink of champagne.

“After tomorrow, he won’t _need_ a stripper,” John tells her. “He’ll have you.” Trish hits him in the arm. “Ow! Elder abuse!”

“Don’t be gross.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Well, _stop_ saying.”

“Fine. Bully.”

Carrie is messing with one of the audio ports by her seat, plugging her phone into it, and a moment later a very loud, very dated Britney Spears song starts playing. She makes a loud hooting noise of triumph and John cackles. Dani darts her eyes to where Jamie is sitting, a little embarrassed, and Trish wraps an arm around her neck, pulling her in and pressing a kiss to her head. 

“We’re losing our girl tonight!” Carrie says. She leans over and grabs Dani’s knee, jostling it back and forth with her hand like it’s a stick shift. 

Dani grabs her hand and shakes her head, laughing melodically. “Oh, hardly!”

“Yes, we are! Now you’re going to be someone’s _wife_. You’ll have to...vacuum the house and make him supper. Put his slippers by the fire for when he comes home.”

“Oh, my god.” Dani shoves her hand away.

“Way to set feminism back sixty years, Carrie,” John admonishes. He has his own glass of champagne now and it’s already half-empty. 

“Obviously, I was kidding.”

“Sure you were.”

“I hate you.”

Their conversation dissolves into bickering, each of them grinning like children as they throw jabs in each other’s direction. Jamie momentarily mutes them on her mixer and singles out Trish and Dani, who are talking at a more reasonable volume beneath the frantic bump of _Womanizer_ coming through the limo speakers.

“How are you _really_ feeling?” Trish is asking, taking a calculated sip of her own champagne and feigning nonchalance. 

Briefly, Dani looks at a loss. She presses her lips together in thought, seemingly thinking over whatever it is she’s about to say, before settling on, “Yeah. I’m...I’m just nervous, I think.”

“I mean,” Trish says, looking sympathetic, “I think that’s to be expected. But you’re...you’re ready for this? Full steam ahead?”

“Yeah,” Dani says without looking at her. “I think so.”

“Is that a yes?”

Dani gives a little laugh, meeting Trish’s eyes, but doesn’t answer.

____________

The final cut of the episode will show the beginning of the bachelorette party like this:

Dani and her friends in the back of the limo, John and Carrie exuberantly lip-synching to _Circus_ while Trish knocks back a glass of champagne, nearly spraying it back out when she spots the purposefully awkward way Dani is dancing in her seat. 

A voice over. Dani saying, “I’m getting married tomorrow. It sounds so weird to say.”

Cut to her standing in front of the restaurant chosen by the producers. Her cheeks are flushed by the wind and the champagne. Behind her cars bustle up and down the street, the streetlights behind her out of focus and hazy. 

“It’s exciting,” she says.

Back to the limo to John and Carrie bickering with Trish over their music choice. Dani sits between them, laughing at their antics. Trish turns to Dani and says, “Last night of freedom. Time to do something crazy!”

Carrie whoops in agreement and John laughs, taking the opportunity to steal her phone and choose a song. Dani’s expression is blank as she stares at Trish for a moment then looks at each of her friends in turn.

Another voice over. “I can’t quite wrap my head around it.”

The camera zooms in on Dani, whose eyes turn from her friends and flickering forward, settling somewhere just ahead at something behind the camera.

A little to her left maybe.

____________

Two hours later and they’ve managed to capture enough conversation from the dinner that Shirley is happy enough to move on and round everyone up to head to the club she’s picked out. It’s a crazy night every year, everyone scrambling about to make reservation times and ensure that as little reshooting and dubbing as possible will be necessary.

Around the time they’re pulling up outside the club, Jamie’s phone starts buzzing in her pocket and doesn’t let up. Between hauling out her equipment and discussing shots with the camera crew, she manages to sneak a peek at it to find that she has nearly fifteen text messages from Owen. 

Most of them are simple, short sentences telling her about his current emotional wellbeing, but it’s clear that he’s far from sober when she reaches the pictures he’s decided to send. In them, he’s making silly faces with some of his wedding party, the baseball hat she bought him declaring him _BACHELOR BOY_ sitting crookedly on his head. 

In the background, she can see the beer garden he’s at, and the soft, warm glow of the garden lights. He looks happy. _Drunk_. But happy. Her chest aches from missing him.

It hasn’t hit her until right then how much she’s missing out on. On top of everything else that she’s dealing with, she’s missing her best friend’s bachelor party. She’ll be missing his wedding, too, the next day. When she should be standing at his side, reassuring him and pretending she’s not crying, she’ll be attending the wedding of the girl she’s becoming mildly enamored with. 

“Hey,” a voice says beside her as she’s finishing up miking the side room of the club they’ve rented out. It’s Dani, shifting her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other and twisting her fingers together.

Jamie’s heart flops pathetically in her chest at the sight of her. “Hey,” she returns. “What’s up?”

Dani shrugs. “Nothing.” She pauses for a moment. “You just looked a little upset for a moment.”

Shame flutters at the base of Jamie’s throat, making her feet like she can’t quite swallow. She wonders how piteous she must have looked to make Dani notice in the first place, then feels angry and stupid at the thought.

“Right,” she says, looking away and pretending to be busy with the contents of her sound bag, slung over her shoulder. “Yeah, no. It’s all good, isn’t it? I’m alright.”

Dani doesn’t look like she believes her even the tiniest bit, which is the real problem with this whole Dani _thing_ in the first place. She’s the kind of person who cares too much about just about everything and everyone. She carries herself like she would glue the pieces of every shattered situation together herself if it were possibly and it’s that kind of Fix-It-Felix attitude that makes Jamie feel even more smitten.

“I’m not trying to, um...force you to talk or anything,” Dani says. “But...I’m here if you want to.”

The room they’re in is pretty dimly lit, the walls such a dark grey that they’re almost black. The wall between them and the club is glass and Jamie can see the mass of people out on the dance floor if she looks past Dani’s open, honest face. An image flashes into her mind of being out there with Dani, pressed close together because it’s packed. She imagines the texture of Dani’s dress below her palms, the way the fabric might give if she slid it up her hips a little. Wonders how soft the skin of Dani’s forehead is as she imagines pressing her own to it, the brush of Dani’s pink lips so close, her breath washing over Jamie’s chin and nose and mouth.

Her silence must read as something else entirely because Dani’s eyebrows furrow and she frowns. “Sorry,” she starts, already stepping away. “I’ll just—”

“No, it’s just—” In her eagerness to keep Dani from leaving, Jamie has a hand thrusted out and her fingers brush against the bare skin of Dani’s forearm. Dani’s eyes drop to where they’re touching and Jamie wants to wrap her hand around her arm properly, but doesn’t. “My, um...My best friend is actually one of the couples getting married tomorrow.”

She admits this lowly, eyeing the room to make sure that no one is paying them too much mind. Shirley is too busy talking to the camera crew and John and Carrie are messing with what looks like a long piece of fabric. In the corner of the room, Horace is eating a triangular half of a sandwich. The only person who even seems to notice that her and Dani are talking at all is Trish, who is eyeing them from beside the other two.

When Jamie catches her eye, Trish smiles politely and looks away.

“Oh,” Dani says. “Wow. That’s...That’s exciting.”

It’s clear from the way she says the last word that she’s not sure what emotion she should be tapping into quite yet. Jamie decides to make it easy on her.

“Yeah, well...Except I can’t be there. He’s having his own party tonight and I’m…” She decides to stop there, worried about making Dani feel guilty for something that isn’t her fault.

“I’m sorry.” Dani turns so they’re facing one another again. In doing so, her arm lowers and Jamie moves away, her fingers feeling cold where they were just touching the other woman. “I imagine that’s really hard.”

Jamie nods. “Right, yeah. It is. But that’s why I’m being all…” She shakes her head, choosing another word. “I didn’t mean to be rude or anything.”

Dani tries a smile. “You were hardly rude.”

“I wasn’t the friendliest.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” A pause. “I know we’re not...exactly friends and I’m sorry you can’t be there, but it’s really nice having you here. I _like_ having you here. You’re a...Would it be cheesy if I said you’re a calming presence?”

Something in Jamie’s chest flutters. “No,” she says, hoping the way her ears are turning bright red isn’t noticeable in the dim lighting. “Not cheesy at all. And…” She hesitates a moment. Forces herself to slow down. Swallow. Then continue. “We’re friends.”

“Yeah?” Dani asks, her eyes crinkling a little as she grins. 

Jamie nods. “Yeah. Course we are.”

They fall into silence then, just looking at one another, and Dani really is pretty, isn’t she? Jamie thinks she could fall in love with the shape of her smile. Thinks maybe she already has and she knows, knows, _knows_ she’s in trouble and feels very suddenly and very wretchedly awful about the whole thing. Sort of wants to apologize for it, but doesn’t get the chance.

Shirley is too busy getting everyone’s attention and trying to get them back on track and then Dani is slipping away, back to the version of her life that Jamie can’t share.

____________

Another final cut:

“A toast to our lovely Danielle, bride-to-be,” Carrie says when they’re all sitting around on the couches in the room. She lifts her drink into the air as she speaks, and then John is jumping in.

“And to your future mister!” he says, lifting his own drink. “May he be a right sort!”

Dani laughs, this delightful noise, and shakes her head as her voice is heard over the sound, saying:

“I can’t wait to see my husband tomorrow.” 

Cut to a talking head. She stands in front of the glass wall looking out on the club, eyes wide, smile fixed on her lips. 

“I’m nervous! I just really want us to hit it off, but I’m trusting the experts on this one, and I’m just really looking forward to tomorrow.”

Back to the toast, where Trish is jumping in saying, “And may you never regret this!” causing the others to all laugh hysterically at the idea as they clink their cups together in the middle.

Dani joins in, white teeth on display, but she hesitates for the briefest moment before she does.

____________

“I think we’re just about finished here.”

“Yeah?” Jamie asks, giving Shirley a curious look; she’s not exactly used to the soft tone the other woman is using. It catches her off guard.

They’re standing to the side of the room, watching as John leads a ridiculous game of something he’d called “Adult Pictionary.” He’s using a giant easel pad and a large red Sharpie to draw what looks like a man whose head is turning into a giant triangle. He’s been slowly adding to it over the course of the time limit, growing increasingly frustrated that no one’s guess has been correct thus far.

“Yeah,” Shirley says. “I talked to one of the guys over at your friend Owen’s party and apparently they’re still going. So if you wanted to take off early, you might have time to make it.”

The offer floors her. It’s not as if Shirley is directly rude to her, but she is demanding when they film and her drive occasionally makes her come off as overzealous and a little high strung. But Shirley has never offered to let her leave a shoot early before and it had been Shirley who put her on Theo Crain’s crew in the first place, far away from Owen, who fell under Arthur Lloyd’s jurisdiction. Jamie suddenly realizes that this is Shirley being nice.

Very nice, in fact.

Her second realization is that she should take her up on it. Owen is probably completely hammered by now, but at least she’d be at his party for a little while. At least she would see him before he gets married to a stranger—before one of the biggest days of his life. She’s already missed so much and she’s going to miss even more as this entire thing goes on. Really, she should take what she’s being offered in both her hands and refuse to let it go.

But then comes her third and final realization: going to wherever Owen is will mean leaving Dani behind.

Dani, who called her a calming presence. Dani, who said she likes having Jamie around—who Jamie is trying very hard not to fall in love with despite having known her for only the barest breath of time.

As if sensing her conflict, Dani looks at Jamie then, their eyes meeting and locking on so easily that it makes Jamie’s decision all the harder. She smiles a little and then goes back to teasing John with the others and Jamie knows that Shirley catches it. She can feel the way Shirley looks at her, like she’s trying to figure something out. And maybe she’s feeding right into her curiosity when she says, “Um, actually. I...I can stay,” but she doesn’t care.

Shirley is silent for a moment. “Are you sure?” she asks, a new tone beneath the words that makes Jamie feel like she’s said exactly what Shirley wants to hear.

She nods without looking at her. “Yeah,” she says. “Work first, right?”

Another pause. She feels it as Shirley looks away. She says, “Right.”

____________

It’s sometime later when Shirley calls it a night and they start packing up their equipment. Most of the crew looks exhausted, and Jamie certainly feels for them, but Dani’s friends look like they’re only getting started. John babbles happily at Dani over Jamie’s shoulder while she’s removing his mic and then practically drags Carrie out into the club once they’re given the all-clear. 

Trish rolls her eyes, but looks good-natured enough when Jamie turns to get her mic as well. It’s when Jamie asks her to thread the wire through her shirt that Trish finally settles her attention elsewhere and fixes Jamie with a serious look. 

“Does this mean you’re all done for the night?” she asks, oddly curious and composed for the late hour and the amount of alcohol she’s consumed over the course of the evening.

Jamie nods, unclipping the mic pack from Trish’s belt. “Yeah, we are.”

“You should hang around after this, then. We were gonna go get some more drinks.” She nods her head toward the glass wall and Jamie follows her gaze for a moment, as if she needs the visual to fully understand the invitation.

“Oh,” she says, a little flustered at the suggestion. So far, she’s only been around Dani while she’s been on the clock. Of all the things she’s walked into so far that she knows to be bad ideas, sticking around after the cameras have come and applying liquor to her pining heart definitely seems like the worst one. “I...um, actually, I was going to head to my friend’s bachelor party if it’s still going on.”

It’s a lie, really. It’s been over an hour since Shirley’s offer and she’s fairly certain that Owen, early riser that he is, is probably already in bed. But it’s the first thing that comes to her head as a decent excuse.

Trish frowns. “That’s too bad.” Her eyes flick over to Dani who has been watching the exchange silently. “Isn’t it, Dani?” 

At the mention of her name, Dani blinks and gives a little jump. “Oh, um...Yeah.” She meets Jamie’s eyes. “Too bad.”

“Maybe just one drink?” And it’s Trish who’s talking, but it takes Jamie a moment to break her gaze from Dani’s long enough to look at her. 

Dani’s _too bad_ is playing on an endless loop in her mind, settling beneath her skin like a physical ache. 

It’s a bad idea. It really is. Terrible. One of the worst she’s ever had.

But that doesn’t stop her from saying, “Yeah, okay,” and then, “I can stay for one drink.”

____________

A table near the bar has been commandeered by the time Jamie gets back from packing her things in one of the vans, sending Horace off to take care of everything else on his own. Jamie slides her way through the crowd, following the sight of Dani leaned forward, elbows on the table, as she talks to Carrie about something. 

Trish is the first one to spot her, lifting her hand up in greeting as Jamie comes to a halt just by the table. “Hey, there you are,” she greets, and that’s what gets the others to look up. Jamie forces herself to hold Trish’s gaze even as she sees Dani’s face in her periphery. “John, Carrie,” Trish says, “this is Jamie. She does sound for the show.”

John, clearly inebriated, thrusts out a hand for Jamie to shake and then pulls her in when she takes it, pressing two air kisses to either side of her face. “Charmed, I’m sure,” he says, his beard scraping a little uncomfortably on Jamie’s cheeks.

She laughs and pulls away, shaking her head. “Very.”

Carrie slaps John in the arm and he makes a face at her. “Too familiar,” she admonishes, then looks at Jamie for herself. “Remember me? You had to tape a mic to my cleavage.”

Jamie flushes at the reminder, glancing away for a moment. “Yeah. I remember.”

“Oh, my god, leave her alone,” Dani defends. Her voice catches on the words and she stumbles a bit as she reaches out for Jamie, like she wants to pull her in to protect her. She seems to think better of it, though, and her hand drops back to her side swiftly. “You’re gonna scare her off.”

Caught beneath the sudden attention of four people, three of whom she hardly knows _at all_ , Jamie is beginning to wonder if staying might have been a mistake after all. Fortunately, Trish seems to sense her hesitance and she comes around the table to stand at her side, looping their arms together. 

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s get you a drink.”

Glad for the out, Jamie nods in agreement and lets herself be led toward the bar.

“Get me another Fruity Pebbles!” John calls as they go.

“Fuck off, John,” Trish teases without turning around.

Jamie hears him gasp just before the buzz of the crowd around them becomes too loud to hear anything else. At the bar, Trish orders something Jamie can’t quite hear over the din of noise, propping her hands on the bar and standing on her tiptoes to be heard. When the bartender nods and sends her a wink, she relaxes and turns to look at Jamie.

“I wasn’t expecting you to stay, to be honest,” she says.

“Oh,” Jamie manages. “Um…”

“But it did prove something, I think.” Her smile is gentle, her eyes soft and shining as they blink at her. She’s shed the overshirt she’s been wearing all night and the muscles of her arms flex solidly as she crosses them over her stomach. Jamie tries not to stare.

“Oh, um,” she repeats, cool as a cucumber. “What?”

Trish lifts one eyebrow. “Just this running theory I have,” she says vaguely.

Jamie feels, very suddenly, like the worst kind of dimwit, the muscles in her jaw quivering a little with quick, vibrating unease. “Care to enlighten me?” she tries, but Trish just narrows her eyes.

Says, “Not yet.” 

The words go right through Jamie’s chest. She tucks her hands into the pockets of her jeans, rocking back and forth on her heels, trying to steady herself before she has to be around Dani again. Her eyes trace over the pretty lines of Trish’s face, the soft features of her profile as she’s looking out across the crowd. In another life, Jamie thinks she might be the kind of girl she’d try to chat up at a place like this. But, as it currently stands, she can’t even bring herself to consider that as an option.

A vague wave of contrition washes over her as she turns her own head to find the reason why in the crowd. To her surprise, Dani’s head is turned in their direction, seemingly watching as she and Trish stand there waiting for their drinks. 

Just as she’s noticing this, Trish says her name, calling Jamie’s attention away again. 

“Yeah?” she asks, and Trish jerks her head back a little, like she’s gesturing Jamie to come closer. Jamie does, lifting one of her arms to rest it on the bar top, steadying herself.

“Can I try something?” Trish asks, and Jamie frowns, confused, but nods anyway. 

A moment later, Trish’s hand is touching her arm lightly on the bar top and she’s leaning in a little closer, saying, “Say something. Anything.”

“What do you mean?” Jamie asks.

Instead of answering, Trish throws her head back and laughs like she’s just said something hilarious. The sound catches her off guard and Jamie goes to pull away, but Trish moves before she can; her hand drifts down Jamie’s arm until she reaches her hand and then she’s lifting it with her own, lacing their fingers together. 

“What are you doing?” is her next question, her heart thudding a little unevenly at the close proximity and the suddenness of the whole thing.

Trish leans in slowly, so close that Jamie is concerned for a moment that she’s about to be kissed by this woman she doesn’t know. At the last moment, though, she tilts her head and moves her mouth to Jamie’s ear instead. Her breath spreads warm through Jamie’s hair, making the back of her neck feel hot in turn, and then she whispers, “Trying to prove something else.”

She pulls back, just as slowly as she came in, and a dozen questions are bouncing around in Jamie’s mind. Her breath is caught in her lungs and her spine is straight—rigid almost—as she pulls her hand out of Trish’s. 

“What exactly?” she asks, but Trish doesn’t answer right away.

Before she can even try, the bartender is back with their drinks. Trish fumbles with the little bag slung over her shoulder for a moment before pulling out her card and handing it over to him, waiting as he swipes it through his mobile POS machine. 

“If I start a tab, John will drink me out of house and home,” she explains, as if that’s what Jamie’s confused about. 

“What just happened?” Jamie presses. She glances over at the table again, but Dani is no longer looking at them. Instead, she’s playing with her phone, looking distant and withdrawn. 

“Like I said,” Trish begins, handing one of the frozen drinks to Jamie, “I’m trying to prove this theory I have.”

The temperature of the glass spikes ice through Jamie’s palm, spreading up her veins to the sound of her own breathing. “What’s the theory?” She hates the tone her voice has taken on, but there’s nothing to be done about it. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

And, yes. _Yes_. Or else she wouldn’t have asked.

Trish goes back to the table, leaves Jamie standing there, trying to figure it out.

____________

“Hey.”

“Hey, welcome back,” Dani says. Her blue eyes fix themselves on Jamie’s and she smiles a little, though it doesn’t last long. She shifts a little to the side so that Jamie can stand beside her, on Carrie’s other side. 

Trish doesn’t say a word to either of them. She just eyes them for a moment across the table and then goes back to her conversation with the other two.

“What do you think this is?” Jamie asks, nodding to the drink Trish ordered for her.

Jamie’s eyebrows furrow. “You don’t know?”

“No clue. Trish ordered it.”

At the mention of her friend, Dani freezes for a moment. Only a moment. And then she blinks and swings back into motion. “Well,” she says, “there’s your first mistake.”

It’s almost midnight. Exhaustion pulses behind Jamie’s eyes and temples, but she can’t imagine leaving. Not yet. 

“Are there going to be more?” Jamie says, then clarifies: “Mistakes?”

“I don’t know,” she says and god _damn_ her, there’s too many ways for Jamie’s wayward heart to interpret that. Jamie’s pulse gives a traitorous _thump_ at the possibilities. “I guess we’ll see.”

Jamie wants to ask her something—some half-formed question that’s been plaguing her thoughts since they met—but then Dani’s tongue darts out to swipe at her lips and all rational thought slips from her mind entirely. 

Instead, she pushes her cup towards Dani curiously. “Be my taste-tester?” she asks.

Dani laughs, already grabbing the straw and pinching it between two lovely fingers. “Like you need to ask,” she says.

____________

The heavy echo of the music pounds through Jamie’s head as she steps out onto the cool city street, holding the door open for the others. It’s late—or early, depending on how you look at the clock—and she thinks she could blame the pleasant buzzing in her mind on two things:

The drinks and the company.

John is half-comatose, flirting shamelessly with Carrie as he leans on her. She guides him toward the limo, parked on the street just ahead, and the driver, who’d been leaning against it looking bored, hops into action at once. 

“I’m gonna give him my address, Dani,” Trish says, bumping her shoulder against the other woman’s. “That way we don’t have to drive all the way back to Welwyn.”

“That’s fine,” Dani tells her.

“It was lovely seeing you again, Jamie,” Trish says next and she has that look in her eye again—the same one she’d had at the bar. She steps over and presses a chaste kiss to Jamie’s cheek, one of her hands touching Jamie’s arm as she does so, and she winks when she pulls back. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

With that, she turns and heads off toward the limo, leaving Dani and Jamie properly alone for the very first time. They don’t speak right away. Instead, Jamie tries, in vain, to understand what exactly she’s stepped into, watching Trish as she gets further and further away. Beside her, Dani shivers, arms around her stomach. The muscles of her jaw are clenched, like she’s trying to keep it from chattering in the cold.

“Here,” Jamie says, suddenly, pulling her jacket off before she can think better of it, holding it out for Dani to take.

“Oh,” Dani says, shaking her head and looking flustered. “I can’t—”

But Jamie has shocked herself into a rare moment of courage. Possibly, she’s just flustered herself into a situation that would be too embarrassing to talk herself out of. She’s not sure which.

“Really,” she says, shaking her jacket for emphasis. “I’m warm-blooded.”

Dani’s expression flickers, a brief look of fondness washing over her before it’s replaced with something a little more amused. “Well,” she says, taking the jacket from Jamie’s hand, “technically, so am I. But thank you.” She slides it on, the baggy, grey material fitting her a little too well, though it does stand apart from the dress she’s wearing. Zipping it up, she tucks her hands into its pockets and then fixes her eyes on Jamie again. “Really,” she says. “You’re very chivalrous.”

Jamie isn’t sure how to respond to that, so she shrugs noncommittally. 

“It’s late,” she says after a moment. “You should get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”

The reminder doesn’t even rattle Dani. She hardly even acknowledges it, just looks over Jamie’s face like she’s trying to find something in it. Jamie drops her eyes and starts a slow walk toward the limo. Dani walks beside her, but she can feel that she’s still watching her.

They’ve barely gone more than a few steps before Dani says, “I’m so glad you...stayed,” and catching them both off guard. “With your friend and all, I…” Dani trails off, then, apparently out of things to say for the moment.

The confession jabs expertly through Jamie’s chest. “I am, too,” she says. Affection throbs like a bruise throughout every cell in her body and she’s nearly surprised that she manages to keep walking. There are so many reasons why this conversation shouldn’t be happening, but Jamie can’t seem to call any of them immediately to mind. Can’t help wishing that things were different that she was someone else, that _Dani_ was—

(free to be loved)

(simple and easy and a _choice_ she could make)

(a different person entirely who Jamie could—)

—still walking beside her and not coming to a halt. Not forcing Jamie to a standstill as well. Not turning to face her and catching them both in this moment outside of time, outside of what they should be doing or can even have. Not reaching out with warm fingers to grab Jamie’s hand in her own—the same hand Trish held at the bar hours before.

Her skin is so soft and her grip is loose but steady. Jamie finds herself wishing, rather dramatically, that they could stay like this forever. Standing there on the sidewalk, Dani wearing her sweater, staring at her like something is about to happen, like she’s about to do something neither of them will be able to take back.

Jamie finds that she’s holding her breath, waiting for something. Doesn’t know what.

What she does know:

It doesn’t come.

Dani pulls away, leaving Jamie’s hand cold and empty and then shakes her head, clears her throat. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says and the next thing she gives Jamie is a sad smile.

“Yeah,” Jamie says, and Dani is already drifting away to the car, to her life–leaving Jamie standing where she is, where she shouldn’t be—sending her a wave, getting into the limo and closing the door, carried away into the night while Jamie’s legs turn to concrete beneath her. 

She’s already long gone by the time Jamie manages to say, “Tomorrow.”

..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine ominous music playing bc the wedding is next oops
> 
> also. i quoted dialogue from "The Two Faces, Part One" of Bly.


	4. Weddings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the delay. it hurt a bit to write this kind of angst for these two.
> 
> be warned: things get rough here, but i promise they'll get better.

Two men are hanging around outside the door to Jamie’s flat. She sees them the moment she steps off the elevator and immediately freezes, trying to squint in order to see them better. The hallway lights are dim, though—equipped with the kind of bulbs that claim to hold a “warm glow” but actually just give off too little light. 

Briefly, she considers turning around and leaving, but it’s late—or early, depending on how you look at it—and there’s nowhere for her to go anyway. So she makes her way down the hallway as slow as she can, trying to look nonchalant and very much like the kind of person that shouldn’t be messed with. As she gets closer, she sees that one of the men is leaned heavily against the wall beside her door, slumped a little like he’s half-asleep or something. The other man stands in front of him. Every so often, he’ll speak, but his voice is pitched too low for Jamie to make out anything he’s saying.

After the first panicked twenty seconds of walking, relief washes through her pounding heartbeat and slows the blood in her veins as her eyes can finally make out who it is she’s looking at.

“Jamie!” Owen calls, still leaned against the wall and looking rather sloppy. 

The other man, Rob, turns at Owen’s call and smiles when he catches sight of her, giving her a strained smile that looks like it’s trying to apologize for something.

“Hey, Jamie,” he greets.

“Well, can’t say this isn’t a surprise,” she says, nodding between them and coming to a stop just beside her door. Once she’s within reaching distance, Owen reaches out and practically falls into her, arms wrapping around her solidly and holding her into a hug. “Hey, buddy.” She clutches him in return, patting his back a little. “Miss me tonight?”

Owen grunts and pulls away a little, scrunching up his nose, considering. “’Course not. Didn’t even notice you weren’t there.”

Over his shoulder, Rob shakes his head and mouths the word _liar_ , making Jamie laugh.

“Yeah?” she asks, shoving at Owen a little. “Not at all? So that hug meant nothing?”

“I hug everyone like that.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep. Rob...Carly...Jamie.” At her own name, Jamie laughs again and Owen sticks his tongue out at her like a child. “D’ya wanna know a secret?”

Jamie shakes her head, endeared. “Sure, why not?”

“I’m getting _married_ tomorrow.” He says it in a sort of loud whisper, his warm breath hitting her face and making her wince. 

“God, you smell like you’ve been drinking rubbing alcohol,” she complains and Rob laughs. Owen pouts. “And I knew that already, bud.”

Owen’s shoulders deflate. “Oh. Okay.” 

“What are you doing here?” she finally asks, looking to Rob for explanation.

“He wouldn’t stop begging me,” he tells her. “Practically started crying in the Lyft and didn’t stop until I promised we’d come see you. Sorry for just...showing up like this.”

Jamie’s heart twinges, more than a little endeared at the thought. “No, it’s all good, isn’t it?” Owen slumps against her, nodding against her shoulder. “Come on, you’re staying with me tonight.”

“Slumber party,” Owen coos.

As he says it, he slings his arm around Jamie’s waist and she fumbles for her keys. After journeying home without a jacket, his warmth is somewhat welcome, but that’s not something she’d ever share with him, drunk or not. 

It’s a bit of a struggle, but, between her and Rob, they manage to get Owen into her flat, out of his coat and shoes, and into Jamie’s bed. Rob lets himself out afterwards, saying his goodbyes to both of them and getting a grunt from Owen, who’s already falling asleep. 

“Goodnight, Owen,” Jamie says, draping a blanket over his prone form, but he grabs for her before she can step away from him. He mumbles something that she can’t understand. “What’s that?” she asks, amusement playing lightly on the edges of the question.

“Stay here,” he says. “Your couch is shit.”

And, well...she can’t really argue with that.

It isn’t until the lights are off and she’s lying on the other side of the bed that he speaks again, his voice hushed with the lingering traces of alcohol and exhaustion. He pushes back against her a little and says, “Big spoon?” and it takes a moment for Jamie to figure out what he’s asking.

“Oh, God,” she groans. “No. Snuggle yourself.”

“You’re better at it,” he tells her, as if the two or three times she’s done that for him—after his mother died and he didn’t want to be left alone—have proven much of anything. “You’re getting replaced tomorrow anyway.”

Jamie thinks about that. Imagines Hannah coming down the aisle toward him. Remembers that she won’t be there for that part. She’ll be too busy watching Dani do much of the same.

And then—

 _Dani_.

Her muscles _squeeze_ a little at the memory of Dani’s gentle touch to her hand outside the bar. The drape of Jamie’s jacket around her shoulders. The soft look in her pretty, blue eyes that said something—were asking for something, maybe—that Jamie can’t give her. 

Pretending that Owen is the only one who needs a little comfort would be a disservice to herself. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t grumble as she turns on her side and wraps an arm around him, moving closer. 

He hums happily, grabbing her hand in his much larger one and squeezing. Part of her longs to tell him about everything—all those terrible thoughts plaguing her every thought these days—just so she can get it off her chest. But he’s tired and so is she, and he has other things to worry about. They both do, really.

So she settles for keeping an arm around him, settling into his familiar warmth. 

And when he says a quiet, “Love you,” as he drifts off to sleep, she hardly hesitates to say it back.

__________

Despite the pounding headache she has the next day, Jamie does the sensible thing and decides to get to work early. She tells herself that it has nothing to do with what the day will bring, nor does it have anything to do with wanting to see Dani as soon as possible, but she’s not a very good liar.

Owen is still asleep by the time she’s about to leave—a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water on the table beside the bed. Briefly, he wakes up when she goes to say goodbye, rising quickly with a pained wince to wrap his arms around her and sniffle a little against her shoulder as she whispers a, “Congratulations,” against the side of his messy bedhead.

“It’s too bad you won’t be there,” he laments without an ounce of resentment, just a cool melancholy that makes Jamie want to shiver. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” she tells him. “Might be able to sneak away to see you, alright?”

He nods and releases her from the hug, patting her on the head as he lies back down. He grunts when she reminds him to lock up on his way out and then he’s asleep again and she’s out the door.

__________

The mikes in Dani’s bridal suite have just barely been set up when there’s a knock at the door. It’s strange for two reasons: no one is set to arrive for another forty minutes and the door is propped open with a door stopper, rendering a knock relatively useless.

Jamie turns her head quickly, crouched on the floor by the window where she’s digging through her sound bag, to find a familiar face waiting for her.

Dani stands at the door, one hand still raised as if stuck mid-knock, with a sheepish smile playing on her lips. She’s wearing a pair of grey joggers and running sneakers, her hair pulled back on her head with a messy bun and Jamie thinks, distantly, that it’s the most beautiful she’s ever looked. 

One other thing, too:

She’s wearing Jamie’s jacket, the one she’d been lent less than twelve hours before. It looks just as good on her now as it did in the romantic glow of the streetlights, and Jamie’s mouth feels so suddenly dry.

“Hey,” Dani says, lowering her first. She takes a step inside.

“Hey,” Jamie returns. She gets, very slowly, to her feet and, once there, stuffs her hands into the pockets of her trousers. “You’re here early.”

Dani nods, toying with the strap of the bag she’s got over her shoulder. “Yeah, I...I couldn’t sleep last night, so I thought I might as well…” She shrugs and comes more fully into the room. There’s a couch just past the kitchenette and she sets her bag on it. “Nervous, I guess.”

Really, she doesn’t need to say it. Jamie thinks anyone could gather that from the shake in her shoulders, but the excuse goes right through her anyway.

“Can’t say I blame ya’ for that,” Jamie tells her. “You look, um…” She gestures vaguely and Dani looks away for a moment before looking back. 

“I...I wanted to be comfortable for as long as possible. I have a feeling my dress is going to be wearing _me_ by the end of the night.” 

It’s a rushed explanation, as if she truly believes she needs to justify her reasons for wearing comfortable clothing. Jamie realizes how her comment must have come off by being unfinished.

“I wasn’t say that—” she begins, then shakes her head, feeling foolish. “You look great. Really.” Dani stares at her, disbelieving. “My jacket suits you, too.”

Whatever she’s expecting, it’s not for Dani to give her a knowing, little smile. She’d imagined light embarrassment at the call-out, perhaps some skirting around the comment, but, instead, she looks like she’d been waiting for Jamie to say something about it the whole time.

“Thanks,” she says. She reaches down to look at the sweater for herself, tucking her hands into its sleeves. The bright, white _M_ logo for the MetFilm school wrinkled on the left lapel. “I was...I mean, I brought it so I could give it back, and I really appreciate—”

Jamie waves a hand, cutting her off. “Keep it,” she says and Dani looks a little surprised. “Really. S’long as you like. Like I said...suits you.”

The air crackles and pops with tension as they look at one another, Jamie’s words still bouncing around the walls of the suite and making themselves heard in the echo of Jamie’s heartbeat, in the way Dani blinks slowly at her. Her lips are parted, pink and stained with chapstick, the white of her top teeth a little visible as she breathes in and out. Jamie considers what might happen—how today might change—if she were to just step forward a little bit. Bring herself closer. Wonders if Dani would meet her in the middle or if she’d just stand there, letting the earth spin around them.

“Dani, perfect!” a voice calls and it’s Shirley, wild-eyed and raring to go as she bustles into the room. “You’re here early.”

Dani splutters back a response. A, “Y-yeah. Yes,” that sounds as spooked as she looks at the sudden interruption. 

“Your friends should be here in about thirty, which means we have enough time to get some shots of you in the room, getting up and starting the day.”

“Oh, like I would be—” Dani begins, but Shirley cuts her off.

“Getting out of bed, maybe getting some of the breakfast we have set out—” Shirley waves an arm to the kitchenette where several bowls of fruit and pastries are lying out. “That sort of thing.”

“B-but I didn’t...sleep here, so I—”

Shirley ignores her, lifting her radio up and pressing down the button to say, “Mike, can I get two cameras up in 307? I’ve got Jamie up here already.”

Mike’s voice crackles out of the radio in response, but Shirley’s got the volume so low that its mostly unintelligible. 

Dani looks completely panicked now, as if the real source of her anxiety isn’t the wedding at all, but Shirley and her clipboard. Jamie thinks that’s something she understands too well. When she meets Dani’s eyes, she gives her a thumbs up and a reassuring smile before retreating back to her equipment to wait for further instructions.

She thinks about the look in Dani’s eyes just a minute before, when they were alone, while she waits.

__________

If anyone ever tried to read Jamie’s mind—which, thank god that’s not a thing—they would probably tell you that her greatest form of self-punishment is doing the thing she used to love at a job she actively hates. Her acute masochism comes in other forms, yes—in unopened letters from the brother she hasn’t spoken to in over a decade, missed phone calls from the one who tries to see her almost every week; in the girls she meets at bars and follows home like a stray cat only to be turned out after she’s served her purpose; in the long hours she sometimes goes without properly taking care of herself; the days she goes without sleep—but her career choice certainly has a stab that nothing else can quite manage.

More than likely, though, Jamie would deny that. She’d say something about it “paying the bills” or “not mattering very much,” all while secretly remembering the big dreams she’d had in school of becoming a sound designer, someone who _matters_ on set, on a show or for a movie that _isn’t_ completely ridiculous and exploitative. 

Put a drink in her hands and maybe—just _maybe_ —she’ll admit to the truest punishment she’s ever put herself through which is this:

Watching a girl she’s fairly certain she could fall in love with getting her hair and makeup done, hours before getting married to someone else.

This, too: the ache of her arms as she holds the boom mike, loftily, above the center of the little dining room where magic is being made. It’s a position she’s used to, but not one she often has to take when Horace is around. 

Unfortunately, Horace is too busy in Edmund’s suite, wherever he is, and so she should really be grateful for the small victories. Like catching Dani’s eyes and making her grin whenever her expression goes too serious, which begins happening more and more often once her friends arrive.

Carrie breaks into the champagne early and she and John begin guessing at what Edmund looks like, placing small bets between the two of them. Trish gets her hair curled away from her face, rolling her eyes at their antics, and occasionally trying to get Dani to say more than one or two words at a time.

“I’ll put money on him being short,” John says. “Dani, I’ll get you a neck brace if he is so you don’t hurt yourself bending down too often.”

Carrie chortles. Dani doesn’t even notice what’s going on. She stares out the window at the sun beaming against the tall buildings surrounding them. There are dark circles beneath her eyes that Jamie hadn’t noticed before. If she didn’t know any better—and, really, she _doesn’t_ —she might draw the conclusion that Dani’s been crying.

But that borders a little too closely to getting her hopes up. And she’s been trying not to do that.

“Then I’ve got five-ten and up,” Carrie decides. Her and John stare at one another for a moment and then shake hands seriously before pouring themselves more champagne.

“Quit it,” Trish admonishes. “Dani’s already nervous enough.”

John mock-gasps. “No, she isn’t. She’s cool as a cucumber, right, Dani?” Dani doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even _hear,_ it seems like. She just continues to stare out the window, completely unaffected. “Oh, my god,” John whispers. “I think this whole thing broke her brain.”

Carrie shoves him. “Shut up.” 

Trish, at least, looks a little concerned. “Dani?” she calls out gently. “Babe?”

This last one startles Dani into turning her head and actually looking at them. The makeup artist in front of her gently grabs her chin and turns her face back a little so she can continue working. 

“What?” Dani asks, dazed.

Trish frowns. “Are you okay?”

For a moment, Dani is entirely still, like the question has gone completely past her without even being recognized. And then she blinks and nods. Just once. “Yeah,” she says, but no truth lines her tone. None at all. “I’m okay. Just tired. And nervous.”

“I’m sure,” Carrie says, reaching out and touching Dani’s shoulder through Jamie’s jacket. She gives her a comforting squeeze. “But I’m sure you’re also excited, too, right?”

Dani gives a loose nod. “Yeah. Definitely.”

Jamie frowns, adjusting her grip, and looks over at Trish, who seems just as concerned. Briefly, their eyes meet and Jamie is struck with the same feeling she’d had at the bar the night before—that Trish is looking directly through her, already keen on everything she’s feeling. If there is anyone in the world who can read her thoughts, Jamie thinks it would be Trish.

The others fall into another conversation then, occasionally trying to include Dani, but all they really get are monosyllabic and half-hearted responses. Her heart, it seems, just isn’t in it. Jamie is trying very hard not to define what “it” might mean here.

Every so often, Dani will lift her gaze and look directly at Jamie, that same distant gaze she’s been fixing out the window all morning turned her way. She looks almost like she has something she wants to say, something important, but she can’t or she doesn’t. There are others around them who could hear, who might _care_ about whatever important thing it is. 

Or maybe Dani is scared of more than just her wedding right now.

Jamie crosses her eyes and sticks her tongue out a few times, making Dani’s lips light up with a smile. Occasionally, she’ll roll her eyes at something John or Carrie are saying and Dani will actually laugh, shaking her head and looking, for all the world, like things aren’t at all as bad as they seem.

In the final cut of the scene, all of these moments will be edited to make them look like responses to her friends, to what they’re talking about and saying. One in particular will be used in response to something Carrie says about Dani starting the rest of her life today with her _husband_. It will be Jamie’s favorite smile of hers—bright eyes and eyebrows raised, the dip of her mouth turned up and her teeth on display. 

It will have absolutely nothing to do with Edmund, but no one but Jamie will have any idea.

__________

As far as Jamie can tell, she’s the most screwed she’s ever been once Dani is standing in the middle of the room with her wedding dress on. Behind her, Trish is finishing zipping it up her back and putting the little buttons at the top together when she sees the distressed look on her face.

“You look beautiful,” she says to Dani, averting her eyes to meet those of her friend’s reflection in the mirror they’re standing before.

“It’s a really pretty dress,” Dani replies.

Trish nods, her hand on Dani’s waist as she adjusts some of the material there. “And you’re a really pretty woman,” she says. “So that helps.”

Dani looks very suddenly flushed. Jamie is certain she’s not imagining it when she glances in her direction. “Thank you,” she says and Trish pats her on the hip before stepping back.

“It’s gonna be tricky to get off later, though,” she says. “You might need to recruit some help.” Lifting her hands, she adjusts the straps of the dress.

“I know of someone who could help with that,” John jokes. He’s lounging on the couch in his suit, dress shoes resting in Carrie’s lap as she sits on the other side. They high-five one another.

“Put that man to _work_ ,” Carrie adds. 

They high-five again.

Trish rolls her eyes. “I’m sure you can get someone to help get you out of this dress,” she says, and then she pointedly looks over at Jamie, lifting an eyebrow as if to silently say, _Right_?

Jamie resists the urge to answer. Meets Dani’s eyes for a brief moment and knows that they are both thinking the exact same thing. Her phone buzzes in her back pocket, making her jump a little and adjust her grip on the mic and, by the time she’s settled again, Dani isn’t looking at her anymore. 

Instead, she’s looking at the door of the suite, her lips parted in surprise, eyes wide with unshed tears as she takes in the sight of an older blonde woman standing there. Jamie recognizes her at once from the brief FaceTime Dani made just a week or so before.

“Mom?” Dani says, sounding so young and nervous that Jamie’s heart feels fit to break.

Karen Clayton stands there for a moment, completely still, with Shirley standing just behind her, gesturing at one of the cameras to Jamie’s right. And then it happens—she sees the exact moment that the mask falls over Karen’s face, an expression of exaggerated surprise and melancholy striking across her features. She lifts a hand to her mouth, lower jaw quivering, and then she rushes across the room and pulls her daughter into a suffocating hug.

“You’re here,” Dani says quietly, stiff in her mother’s arms.

“I wasn’t going to miss my only daughter’s wedding,” Karen tells her.

Dani’s shoulders slump a little. She lifts one arm to press against her mother’s back. “You said you…” she begins, but whatever she is about to say gets swallowed in the shushing noise Karen begins making after that. 

She sways her daughter in her arms, rocking her back and forth like a child. Her voice is pitched a whisper, but it’s Jamie’s job to hear the important stuff, and so she can just make out what she’s saying.

“I’m so proud of you. You’re going to be such a good wife, baby. Oh, my Dani.”

And maybe Jamie has been questioning this whole time why someone like Dani would want to do something like marry a stranger on TV. But, looking at the way Karen is clutching her close, listening to the things she’s saying, she doesn’t have to wonder anymore.

__________

The final cut will jump from Dani’s surprise to the two of them hugging, swaying back and forth in the middle of the room. It will linger on the way Dani swipes tears from beneath her eyes as she steps away in her wedding dress. 

And then a talking head. Dani saying:

“It’s so wonderful to have my mom here for this. I don’t think I would be getting married without her.”

Standing in front of the wide window overlooking the city, she’ll smile in a way that can’t linger for very long. She will say, “I feel like, now that she’s here, I’m ready to do this.”

And it’s not that it’s not convincing—Dani is, by all rights, a decent enough actress. It’s that, by the time she’s saying this, Jamie will already know better.

__________

Owen texts her a selfie with his face cropped out so that all Jamie can see is his slightly-lopsided bowtie. Attached to it is a message that reads, _Does this look right?_

Jamie flicks the ashy end of her cigarette onto the concrete underfoot, leaned back against the outside wall of the Waldorf. It does and it doesn’t, but the picture is a little blurry which she thinks means his hands were shaking a bit when he took it. There’s no need in making him any more paranoid.

 _Yeah_ , she writes, _Looks great._

He sends back a thumbs-up emoji and then, a handful of seconds later, a selfie of him, Rob, and his work-friend, Carly, all dressed up in matching bowties and suit colors. They’re grinning and happy and longing twinges through Jamie’s muscles as she stomps out her cigarette. 

_We’ll have to photoshop you in later_ , Owen types.

There are perks to her job and she reminds herself of them. She gets to go on two honeymoons a year—one internationally; one domestically. Sure, she works the entirety of the time, but she’s been to more places with work than she’s ever bothered to travel on her own. Another is the connections she’s made already through producers, the stress of doing sound for a reality TV show adding a certain weight to her resume when she inevitably– _blessedly_ —moves on to greener pastures. She has her name listed on the credits of a show that averages about two million viewers per week. 

Whenever she’s working late hours or feels like she could claw out of her skin from the amount of stress some weeks put her through, she tries to remind herself of these things. It only works some of the time.

Because there are disadvantages, too. There are said long hours—sometimes she works more than twelve hours, following people around as they live their lives; jumping between the editing studio and different locations and trying to from drowning entirely. There are the producers that expect you to read their mind, Shirley who expects her to be five steps ahead of her ever-changing mind at all times. There was the time her mixer went out in the middle of a romantic dinner between one of the couples and she spent the next week trying to get everything redubbed and lined up perfectly so no one would notice.

And this new season has brought even more. 

One of the biggest ones has been breathing down her neck all day, just waiting for the slightest misstep to bring her down. She knew going into this that, were Owen to be selected, she would miss these oh-so-important milestones. She _knew_ it.

But it cuts so much deeper on the day of his wedding than she ever thought it would.

Another message comes through before she can formulate a response. Owen must have been waiting for her to say something, staring down at the little read receipt below his last message. He must know exactly what effect his words have had.

And it makes her ache and miss him all the more when he says, _We’re missing you a lot right now._

Jamie sniffles, swipes at her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. She’s far from alone—there are still people bustling up and down the street despite all the closures caused by their crew, the vans parked every which way holding flowers and food and caterers, the limos for the guests and the overflow of unused decorations lining the street beside some of the cars—but she doesn’t even care if anyone sees her. 

She types back, _Missing you too. Behave yourself._

Just as Owen responds, a producer ducks his head out of the main entrance of the hotel, looking around until he spots Jamie standing there. “We’re thirty minutes out,” he says, like Jamie doesn’t already know that. “Bride’s walking in ten.”

“Be right there,” she says and he nods, going back inside and letting the doors close behind himself. Once he’s gone, she looks back down at her phone to find that Owen’s simply sent a string of emojis, ranging from smiley faces to hand gestures to a wedding cake and wedding bells.

At the end is a red heart.

She presses her thumb into the message and waits for the reactions list to pop up, selecting a heart of her own to attach. And then it’s back to work.

__________

“Alright. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? Last chance to back out.”

“She won’t be backing out.”

“Right, I know. Just kidding, Mrs. Clayton.”

“Mom, it’s fine. And Trish, really...I’m good.”

Jamie resists the urge to stare Dani down and wordlessly beg for her to just be fucking _honest_ as she catches Trish’s eyes. Trish, for her part, looks about as annoyed by the whole thing as Jamie feels. There’s a harsh set to her jaw line, like she’s clenching her teeth, and, if looks could kill, there’s a good chance Karen would be dead ten times over already. 

“He’s going to love you, sweetie,” Karen says, rubbing Dani’s back as the makeup artist does some retouches to her makeup. 

Apparently, she’d continued crying after Jamie went for a smoke break, because those purple circles were visible again by the time she got back. Now, they’re being covered up again by concealer and powder, hiding any trace of an emotion that isn’t sheer bliss or eager excitement.

“Okay,” Dani breathes. It looks like it takes some effort, really; her chest stutters a little as it rises and falls and there’s a tremble in her lower lip. There are only so many things that makeup can hide and what appears to be an oncoming panic attack isn’t one of them. “Can I just...Would it be okay if I just had a moment? Alone? Without the...without the cameras?” 

She throws a significant look to Shirley who blinks in surprise. To Jamie’s memory, only a couple of people have asked that question before and it was usually in the middle of a serious argument with their new mystery spouse. The urge to deny the reasonable request is evident in the way Shirley hesitates, but, with so many people watching, she’s a little caught. 

“Of course,” she says, plastering on a fake smile. “We’ll give you a minute and then head down in five, is that okay?”

The hard press of her voice makes it clear that the last tag is anything but a question. It’s informative. She’s telling Dani exactly what is going to happen if she allows her a brief reprieve. But Dani is amenable to the terms. She nods and then the crew is walking past her, parting like water around a single, solitary white rock. Trish squeezes Dani’s arm on her way, and Carrie does the same, linking arms with John as they follow after the camera crew. 

Karen looks like she wants to fight Dani’s request, too, but she, like Shirley, is vastly outnumbered. She throws a serious look at her daughter on her way out, but Dani is too busy staring at the floor. 

Jamie fiddles with her mixer as she lowers her boom, pulling off her headphones. When she goes to join the others in the hallway, Dani looks up and Jamie gives her a kind smile, already leaving. 

She understands the need for space better than some. And she very much wants to talk Dani out of this whole thing because it really seems like she doesn’t want to do it. But there’s a voice in the back of her mind telling her that she’s reading too much into it. That she’s selfish and _wanting_ and seeing what she wants to see. So she sets her feet in the direction of the door.

“Hey, Jamie?” Dani says softly—so softly that Jamie almost doesn’t catch it—stopping her just before she leaves. “Can you...Can you tell me I’m not making some huge mistake?”

Sunlight flashes in the side of Jamie’s eyes, reflecting off the windows of the building across the street and temporarily blinding her as she turns around. Her blood rushes hot and fast through her body, through her veins, telling her to breathe. To take it easy. To be as honest as she can be without trying to sway Dani’s judgement.

Dani stands very, very still about five meters away, her blonde hair wave and silken as it falls around her shoulders. With the way the sunlight is hitting her, Jamie is surprised that she’s able to keep breathing, keep standing upright when a dazed fog washes over her bones. Whatever she’s planning to say, the sight of Dani standing there saps it from the place she’d been forming it together and Jamie is left to open her mouth and say the very first thing that comes to her mind.

“Do _you_ think it’s a mistake?”

Dani blinks. “I don’t...I don’t know.” She shakes her head, blinking a few too many times to be considered normal and calm. “I just...I think it’s just hitting me what I’m signing up for here and I’m kind of...I’m freaking out, to be honest.”

Jamie can’t see herself, but she can assume that her expression is chiseled out of blatant consternation. “I think...It’s a big deal, isn’t it? Getting married always is and you’re...well, you’re getting hitched to someone you’ve never met. So...of course you’re nervous.” She swallows thickly, hating the flush of her own cheeks, hoping she doesn’t look as dreadfully optimistic as she feels, even as she tries not to cross party lines and tell Dani to just run and never look back. “Most of the people I see are when they do this.”

“Yeah,” Dani says. “Yeah, that makes sense, but I...I don’t want to do this and... _ruin_ everything.”

The air feels like it did just that morning when they were discussing Jamie’s jacket. It feels the way it did on the street the night before and in Dani’s house before her party. It feels the way it always does when Jamie is alone with Dani like this, given her full attention and is left to keep from collapsing under the weight of it.

But it also feels different, and Jamie thinks it has to do with the vague way Dani says “everything.” Not like she’s making a vague generality, but like she’s referencing something they both understand and know about. Maybe something they’re both feeling.

Still, Jamie has to know: 

“What would you be ruining?” 

Dani’s mouth opens a little. If it were closed anymore, Jamie doesn’t think she might have heard the crippled, “I don’t know,” she releases.

And there’s the issue, isn’t it? That’s what it all comes down to because if Dani _does_ know—and Jamie thinks she _must_ —it’s not something she’s willing to say aloud, and doesn’t that say everything?

“I can’t tell you what you should do, Poppins,” Jamie says and Dani’s expression flickers at the use of the nickname. She clenches and unclenches her hands like she’s just barely restraining herself from grabbing hold of something. “No one can. You’re the only one who can decide what to do. You can’t let what anyone else wants dictate it.”

“What would you do?” Dani tries next. “If you were in my position.”

Jamie can’t even imagine being in that position, though. That’s the real trouble. All she knows is what it is to be in _this_ position—infatuated with a woman who is literally minutes away from getting married to someone that isn’t her—and she hasn’t, at any point, had any idea of what to do with herself.

But she can’t very well say that.

Instead, she says, “I don’t know. I really don’t. And I’m sorry, I know that isn’t helpful.” She tightens her grip on the mic handle until it hurts and then stays like that long enough that it starts to affect her blood flow—starts to make her hands and arms feel sleepy and numb. “I think you should...do whatever is going to make you the happiest. I want you to be happy, Dani. So happy. Your happiness should be all that matters.”

For some reason, this makes Dani look like she’s about to cry again. Jamie wonders how many people have said that to her before. Based on the continued tremble of Dani’s mouth, she guesses not very many.

And, while that breaks her heart a little, it’s all the better that Dani hears it now from someone who really, _really_ means it.

“Okay,” Dani breathes, agreeing to something that neither of them can name accurately, but there isn’t much else to be said on the matter.

There can’t be. 

So Jamie nods. Clenches her jaw and tells herself she can live with that—with whatever it is that makes Dani happy. Says, “Okay,” and hopes she means it.

__________

The first time Jamie speaks to Edmund, he’s practically bouncing out of his skin. Standing just inside the doorway of the ballroom, he rolls himself back and forth on his heels, laughing nervously at every other word his mates say. It’s hard to double check his mic pack, and Jamie keeps having to tell him to settle down so she can deal with it.

Over his shoulder, Horace gives her a look as if to say, _See what I’ve been dealing with all morning_?

She resists the urge to laugh.

It isn’t until his friends go inside to find their seats that Edmund finally settles down and lets her finish. He’s running a shaky hand through his hair when she steps back and he gives her a sheepish grin. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m a little excited.”

That’s to be expected, Jamie thinks, and it’s definitely a good sign that there’ll be no cold feet from his side, but it twinges a little in her chest all the same. She wants to tell him that he should be, that he’s about to become one of the luckiest men alive and he doesn’t even _know_ it yet, but she doesn’t because A) it’s not her place and B) she’d really rather not be fired over something as childish as resentment.

“That’s understandable,” she says instead and Edmund seems to like that answer.

“Any advice for me?” he asks, a little too serious, and Jamie narrows her eyes for a moment, considering him.

“You want marriage advice, I expect you should leave your questions for one of the experts,” she says. “Or Horace over there—” she nods to him and Edmund turns to look at the man in question, “—who’s been married for over twenty years.”

“Oh, yeah.” Edmund nods a little manically and Jamie almost worries that he’s going to knock his own head off. “I just meant...you know. For the show and everything.”

Jamie tries to remember the last time someone asked her that so bluntly and comes up with nothing. At least he seems a little embarrassed by his own question. 

It’s so juvenile of her, but the last thing she wants to do is give him advice to put him in the good graces of Dani’s friends and mother. If he can’t figure it out on his own, then maybe it’s best left that way. But his eyes are so wide and kind behind his glasses that she can’t help but feel more than a little guilty about the whole thing. It’s through no fault of his own that she’s gone and developed feelings for the woman he’s about to marry. Surely she shouldn’t hold it against him.

“Introduce yourself to her guests,” she tells him and Edmund’s eyes widen as if he’d never considered doing that on his own. “Makes a good first impression.”

It’s not exactly the best advice she could give him, nor is it even close to everything these couples usually learn the hard way as the experiment goes on, but it’s a start. She can still count it as a success on her own part.

“What, when I go out there?” he asks and Jamie nods. “Okay, good. Thank you.” He gives her a dopey grin. “Is she excited, too?” 

“Now that,” Jamie says, actually allowing a little bitterness to enter her voice, “I can’t tell you.”

Fortunately for Edmund, he doesn’t seem to notice.

He doesn’t say much else, and Jamie stands aside checking her equipment and connections to the mikes in the ballroom. When a producer gives her a thumbs up from the side of the platform where the minister waits, she nods and tells Edmund to head on out, which he does with a little bounce in his step. 

Jamie trails after him slowly, keeping out of the camera shot to the best of her ability. As soon as he enters, he’s the only thing Dani’s guests care about. They smile at him and talk in low voices to one another, saying things, she’s sure, that she’s heard so many times before.

Things like: _Oh, he’s so cute._

And: _They’ll look so good together._

Even Carrie and John seem infatuated with him from the get-go. They’re seated in the front row with Karen and Trish and, when he makes his way over to them, John smacks Carrie’s arm excitedly.

“Hi, I’m Edmund,” he says, thrusting out a hand for them to shake. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

They introduce themselves and Jamie silently reprimands herself when Trish’s unimpressed expression makes her feel a little better. Trish narrows her eyes a little as she gives him what appears to be a very firm handshake. 

Over her headphones, Jamie hears her say, “We’ll be talking later,” in a tone that might be joking but probably isn’t, based on her expression.

Still, Edmund laughs in this ridiculously charming way and nods. “Sounds good,” he says, and then he makes his way to his own guests, leaning down to shake what appears to be his father’s hand, then his brother’s. His mom comes next and he leans down to hug her, letting her cry into his shoulder dramatically while he pats her back and says, “It’s okay,” too softly for anyone but Jamie to hear.

By the time he’s up on the platform, hands clasped in front of himself, looking out happily at the rows of seated guests, Horace is already set up with his boom mic just at the edge of the camera frame.

Jamie tucks herself into the side of the ballroom, watching as Shirley radios someone through her walkie at the back. Mike, the showrunner, enters the ballroom and makes a beeline for her, catching her in what looks like a bit of a frantic conversation. 

There’s only a minute or two to go before Dani makes her appearance and comes down the aisle. Just enough time for the cameras to get footage of the guests reacting to Edmund on his own, but the air in the hall seems thick with unnamed tension. Trish catches Jamie’s eye and gives her a serious look that Jamie can’t really read through. Jamie averts her eyes and tugs her phone out really quickly, firing off a quick, _GOOD LUCK_ , text to Owen, who is probably about to enter his own ballroom across the hotel.

She’s barely pressed send when her own walkie, clipped to the collar of her shirt, buzzes. 

“Jamie,” she hears the familiar voice of one of the lower-down producers, Russ, say, “we need you out in the atrium.”

Cursing under her breath, Jamie makes her way across the shiny, wooden floor, her trainers squeaking a little as she goes. Whatever she’s needed for is probably the worst kind of headache—some piece of equipment out; a malfunction with Dani’s mic or else something worse. 

Her phone vibrates in her pocket. Owen. She wants to read it, but there isn’t time because she’s stepping out of the hall and into the atrium to find a distraught looking Karen speaking with Russ.

“...out there already,” Karen is saying. “There has to be some kind of...contractual obligation not to be tardy. The last thing we need people thinking is that she’s getting cold feet.”

Russ lets her rant, but looks all too happy to see Jamie when she reaches them, immediately turning his attention to her. “We’ve got a bit of a situation,” he begins, but Karen cuts in, breath huffy with annoyance.

“My daughter is having an issue with her microphone,” she says. “And we’re on a bit of a tight schedule here. So if you could just go and fix it, we’d all—”

“Where is she?” Jamie cuts in, unwilling to listen to the other woman’s condescending tone a moment longer. 

Russ turns so that Karen doesn’t see the way he rolls his eyes at her. “She’s over by the doors to the garden,” he says and Jamie thanks him before stepping around him and heading for the garden.

Behind her, she hears Karen start talking again, her voice fading into a distant squawk as Jamie gets further and further away. The doors to the garden are large and ornate, flung open to the temperate October afternoon, and Dani is standing directly between them, a striking silhouette in the gentle flare of her white wedding dress, facing out into the bright, fresh air.

“Poppins,” Jamie says, watching the way Dani’s shoulders hitch at her voice. “Alright? Russ said you’re having problems with your mike.”

In the handful of seconds it takes Jamie to say all of this, Dani manages to turn around and look at her. She’s holding a half-empty water bottle in her hands, wearing the same expression she’d been wearing in her suite a half-hour before. Jamie is expecting a simple answer—perhaps something about the moleskin tape holding the lav on losing its adhesive—but that’s not what comes out.

Instead:

“He’s in there already, isn’t he?”

Jamie stops where she is. Nods. “Yeah,” she says. “He is. Waiting for you actually.”

Dani lets herself be caught by this piece of information for just a moment and then begins pacing. A few feet to the right, back on her heel, a few feet to the left. Unhinged, now, her voice is a rush of water spilling past the fallen walls of a dam. “Okay, okay, okay. He’s...Okay, so he’s out there. And so is his family. And my friends. And my mother is waiting for me because she flew all the way here to watch me get _married_ , which is so— I don’t even know, but—”

“Poppins, hey. Slow down.”

“My mom was making all these plans already for Christmas. About us flying to Ohio to see her like this is just... _it_ . And I realized that it’s supposed to be, you know? It’s not just an experiment, this is my _real life_ and I’m getting married to a man I’ve never met.”

“Yeah, that’s how it usually goes.”

The sudden intrusion makes Dani freeze for a moment. Stand where she is. Meet Jamie’s eyes. She sucks in a shaky breath that sounds like it hurts. “Yeah.”

Jamie nods, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “Can I ask you something?” she says, tempting fate with just those five easy words.

Dani nods. 

“Are you...Are you freaking out because you...you’re scared of how much you _want_ to do this?” she asks, then: “Or are you scared of how much you... _don’t_?”

At the bluntness of the question, Dani’s eyes open even wider. Her lips are parted and she’s breathing heavily, like she can’t quite get enough air. Every part of Jamie wants to pull her into a hug and tell her it’s okay. That it’s going to be, but she really doesn’t know if it _will_ be and there’s also this to consider, which is important:

Jamie cannot assume to know the reason behind Dani’s panicked stream of consciousness.

She cannot project her own needs and wants and desires on a woman she doesn’t know very well, whatever the circumstances.

“I don’t…” Dani shakes her head, helpless. “How do I know the difference?” 

And, _goddamnit,_ Jamie has to ask. Has to _know_. 

Says, “Dani, is there a reason you...you asked for me? That you wanted me to come? Because, I mean...It’s pretty obvious that the whole mic thing was a lie.”

Without breaking eye contact, Dani twists the lid of her water bottle open and takes a sloppy swig of it. Her hands are shaking so badly that the water sloshes unevenly inside the plastic bottle as she lowers it back down. “I don’t know.” 

Jamie feels the fever-fire of frustration ignite in her chest. There’s more to it than that and she knows—knows knows _knows_ —that she is not imagining it. She can’t be. It simply isn’t possible after that morning, that afternoon, the _night before_ and the look in Dani’s eyes as she held Jamie’s hand in her own and didn’t let go. And the situation is shit. She knows that better than anyone, but just one brief confirmation could change everything and it’s like Dani knows that and it’s why she _refuses to say it_.

“You don’t,” Jamie says. Not a question. “You have no idea why you made up an emergency and asked for me by name. Why you held me back in the room earlier. Why you wore my _clothes_ to the wedding venue the day you’re supposed to get married.”

Dani blinks. “Jamie, I—”

But Jamie holds a hand up to stop her. “No, don’t, it’s...If you say you don’t know, then that’s it, isn’t it?” Something sharp flickers over Dani’s expression and Jamie isn’t quite sure what she’s supposed to do with that, so she decides to do _nothing_. “But know that I’m not just saying this for my sake. If this isn’t something you want, Dani...you shouldn’t do it. It really is that easy.”

That gets her a reaction she’s not expecting. Dani laughs, this sharp and biting thing that is completely devoid of humor. She doesn’t even have to add anything to it for Jamie to know that she’s saying it _isn’t_ that easy. But that’s answer enough in the moment and it may not be the confirmation Jamie’s chest is bleeding for, but it’s a confirmation all the same.

“Okay,” Jamie says, taking a blind step backwards. Away. “Well, I think you have some people waiting for you, don’t you?”

Dani doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t even agree.

Jamie turns around once she can’t bear the eye contact any longer and walks away, cursing herself—Dani, the entire situation—under her breath. Hopes Dani can hear it.

By the time she gets back, Russ appears to have gotten Karen to calm down. He throws Jamie a panicked look as she approaches, like he’s hoping for good news and Jamie definitely understands that feeling.

The news isn’t necessarily _good_ , but it is this: “I think we’re all set.”

Karen perks up immediately and Russ looks like he could cry. Jamie pats him on the back and slips into the ballroom again without another word.

__________

Not three minutes later, Shirley is waving at the string quartet up front after listening in to her walkie, gesturing at them to begin. They do and Horace steps back and away while Jamie adjusts the gain of the mics surrounding them, making sure that the music won’t wash over every other captured sound during edits. 

She thinks that Trish tries to catch her eye again, but Jamie can’t look anywhere but at Edmund, shifting nervously on the platform. His eyes are fixed to the double doors and Jamie watches the moment Dani appears in them in his expression. His eyebrows raise a little, his lips part. She watches the exact second that he clocks how beautiful she is—how lucky he’s gotten.

It’s almost too much to look at Dani as she drifts her way in on her mother’s arm. Jamie doesn’t think she can handle it at first. But for all those nights when she couldn’t sleep, all those heartbeats caught in her throat, she’s numb when she finally makes herself look. That isn’t to say that there aren’t memories crashing together inside her mind and chest, in the air around them. That she’s not remembering the way Dani’s lips curl around a cigarette, the way she couldn’t stop laughing the night before. How she curls her hair behind her ears and the way Jamie’s name sounds firing off her tongue.

She forces herself to watch, and it’s like the whole thing is moving too quickly. It seems like only seconds pass between Dani entering and her being released by her mother at the altar. Edmund holds out a hand to her and Dani takes it gratefully and lets herself be helped up. 

“Hi,” Jamie hears him say through her headphones. “I’m Edmund.”

Dani laughs, a vision with blonde hair and white teeth, flower bouquet held in front of her stomach. “Danielle,” she says. “Dani.”

“It’s good to finally meet you.”

“You, too.”

Some of their guests are laughing, charmed by the easy introduction between these two. Carrie leans over and whispers something to John, who grins and nods in agreement. Jamie is close enough that she can see the whites of Dani’s eyes. The blue of them, too. Close enough to know that, when Dani flickers her gaze over Edmund’s shoulder, it’s _Jamie_ she’s looking at. 

The minister starts the ceremony. Jamie stands numb in the corner. It’s all going too quickly and too slowly at the same impossible time. There is a sharp jab beneath Jamie’s ribs, right into the meat of her heart, when Edmund reads his written vows, promising to support and care for Dani, not just over the next couple months, but forever.

From her chair beside Trish, Karen wipes at her eyes. 

Dani has her own vows to read, but Jamie can’t even hear them. In her head is a high-pitched ringing noise that she knows has nothing to do with an equipment malfunction and everything to do with the issues she’s having breathing. Whatever she says, her friends laugh—even Trish cracks a brief grin—and Edmund looks a little bit in love already.

Which is good. That’s a good thing. 

That’s what Jamie tells herself, anyway.

 _Good for who_? something in the back of her mind whispers, and she doesn’t even have the strength to tell it to shut up.

For all the clench of her muscles, the pulpy thump of each heartbeat—for all the movies with romantic interruptions and the childish daydreams Jamie has entertained for the last two weeks; for all of the _goddamn_ hesitation in Dani’s expressions and behaviors, in her words and actions—there isn’t any when the minister asks her to answer that age-old question.

Dani just says, “I do.”

..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes.


	5. The Newlyweds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so so sorry about the wait! i really will try to be better. 
> 
> just as a heads up, this chapter includes a panic attack so quick TRIGGER WARNING if that's something you need to be kind to yourself about.
> 
> also: i mean it when i say slow burn and i mean it when i say angst. i just want you to know that (also that i love you and very much appreciate anyone who has kudos'd or commented on this piece!)

The rest of the ceremony passes in a blur for Jamie—a whirlwind of written vows and tear-stricken mothers, and a headache courtesy of her own seemingly endless bad decisions.

And Dani, of course.

Always Dani.

Jamie’s still trying to figure out what to do with that part. Their tiff out by the hotel garden is still echoing in her head, making the pain behind her eyes all the worse. She tells herself that the whole thing is silly. That the two of them are hardly even friends and that she has no claim to any part of what they could have been in another world. But then, Edmund is a complete stranger, and look at what he now can call his own.

When the minister declares them husband and wife, Edmund goes in for what looks like a real kiss, but Dani redirects him by kissing his cheek instead. It’s not unheard of, and the awkward exchange is not exclusive to the two of them; there have been plenty of couples before that haven’t wanted to kiss at the actual ceremony. 

Jamie reminds herself of this as she follows after the camera crew and Horace, out of the hall they’re in and into the atrium, then to the garden waiting for them outside. Waiting for them are two champagne flutes and a bottle of champagne on a table in the middle of the dying greenery.

Edmund is still bouncing a little with each step, grinning widely and gripping on to Dani’s hand until he has to pull away to pop the champagne. “White’s a good color on you,” he jokes as he pours her a glass. 

“Yeah?” Dani laughs, a little too high-pitched and Jamie raises her eyebrows. Edmund, apparently, doesn’t notice. “Thank you. You look really good, too.”

“So.” Edmund takes a long drink from his glass. “I think I said this at the altar, but it’s really nice to finally meet you. Put a face and name to the...bride.”

He winces a little at himself.

“You, too,” Dani says, and she looks like she’s trying very hard to maintain eye contact with him for some reason. “I’m not some...huge let-down, am I?”

“Oh, no way.”

“Glad to hear it.”

In the stillness that follows, Jamie allows herself to take a deep breath without holding it in. The ache in her chest has made that simple action nearly impossible since the start of the ceremony. It’s a beautiful day, if a bit overcast, and it’s chilly but not cold. Then again, she’s wearing multiple layers. Dani, however, is not, and she notices the slight shiver and shake to her shoulders when her eyes linger too long on the bared, freckled skin. 

Dani must feel that she’s being watched, though, because her eyes lift and catch Jamie’s for a moment. There’s something in her gaze that Jamie thinks might be remorseful. Maybe a little apologetic

( _ it is more than that; it is  _ **_ardency_ ** )

but any moments like this one they’ve shared in the past did not have another fighting for Dani’s attention. Now there is Edmund to worry about.

“So, what do you do?” comes Edmund’s next question, a perfectly regular thing to ask, but Jamie just barely catches herself from scoffing aloud.

For reasons she should be trying to extinguish, there’s something growing inside her about Edmund. Something that is coveting and bitter and she knows that she has no right to that deadly combination of feelings, but she can’t help thinking of him as dimly unworthy of what is standing in front of him. 

“I’m a teacher,” Dani says, her eyes staying on Edmund’s face like she’s trying her hardest to keep them there. It’s possible that she is. “What about you?”

Edmund swallows another drink of champagne. “Oh, um...student, funny enough,” he tells her, throwing in a light chuckle to lessen whatever tension is lingering between them. “Graduate student, though. At UCL.”

Dani bobs her head. “That’s nice. What do you...study?”

Edmund says, “Architecture,” which Dani seems interested in. They talk about that for a while. 

As they do, Shirley moves around behind the rest of the crew, talking to a few producers in a hushed voice. She’s grasping her radio in one hand, occasionally tilting away to talk into it, presumably about one of the other weddings taking place. At the reminder, Jamie’s heart sinks a little, imagining Owen and Hannah having a similar conversation somewhere else in the hotel. 

What she wouldn’t give to be  _ there  _ instead. Anywhere else. Somewhere far from Dani and her unsure little looks, the way she shows all of her teeth when she’s smiling or laughing at something Edmund’s just said. If they were strangers to one another—the way Dani and Edmund are—then Jamie might be able to convince herself that any of the emotion Dani is displaying is genuine. But they aren’t strangers, and that’s the trouble. 

Because Dani marries strangers and Jamie is a friend. An acquaintance, at the very least.

And Jamie knows better.

She knows this, too: there’s nothing to be done about it.

_______

“Let’s hear it for the newlyweds: Edmund and Danielle!”

The DJ’s voice cuts through the expectant air of the reception hall like the prow of a ship breaking through the white-horned crest of a wave. Jamie stands in the splash zone and thinks about the word  _ newlyweds _ ; she stares at the two of them, hard, as they make their way through their standing, cheering guests and tries to glue it to the way they’re holding hands—the way Edmund is laughing and the way Dani’s teeth are glowing white with her smile. It doesn’t feel right, but, as with most of the emotions swirling inside of her, Jamie’s fairly certain it’s all in her head.

This is usually the easiest part of the whole season. The hall is miked well enough and Horace and the other two sound guys spread out across the room know their jobs. Theoretically, she could spend the rest of the reception standing in the corner and sulking. It’s what she’s done in seasons past, albeit without the sulking part. Shirley allows anyone working one drink from the bar if they so wish, and she’s always taken her own in the past. Usually, there’s some leftover cake as well. 

She’s always been so happy to take it for what it is which is this: a free party that she’s being paid to attend. Granted, there are still talking heads to record and a little bit of required coordination with family interactions and other mingling, but it’s a walk in the park compared to a lot of other necessary shoots. Especially right after the wedding portraits.

It was so windy in the garden that she’d nearly worried she wouldn’t be able to get any good, clear audio from the entire forty-five minute span they were out there. The photographer, too, was having issues getting decent shots that didn’t involve Dani choking on her veil as the wind whipped around her. 

But it was more than that, too. 

The portraits are usually a good indicator of how each couple is feeling about their shiny, new union, and, though she’s certainly witnessed some initial hesitance in the past, she’s fairly certain that Dani is in a league of her own. After the obligatory group pictures and bridal party photographs, there’d been ones to take of just her and Edmund and each of them featured them both in what were usually intimate positions but, for them, were anything but.

Prom picture poses rather than anything inherently romantic. Every time the photographer called for a “kiss shot,” Dani offered Edmund only her cheek and, while it looked like he wanted more than that—if only for posterity’s sake—Edmund kept his distance and her wishes.

He kissed Dani’s cheek and held her hand. He put his arm around her when she seemed comfortable enough with that, but he was careful to never take it further than that and so was Dani. In their talking head afterward, they seemed happy enough with one another. Edmund kept his arm around Dani’s waist and they each expressed excitement at the match, but Dani’s solo talking head told a different story.

( _ I don’t know. It’s weird, isn’t it? We don’t really know each other yet and...I just think we should know each other a little better before we start kissing in front of other people. Does that make sense? _ )

Of course it did, but Jamie didn’t say that. No one said that because no one could. Edmund, later, said something about

( _ She seems a little uncomfortable, so I’m just trying to...you know...go at her pace. _ )

respecting boundaries and slowing things down, and Jamie has decided not to read into it. Doing that has gotten her into a lot of trouble as of late, and she’d like to make sure it doesn’t get any worse.

Dani and Edmund are talking to Dani’s mother now, Karen leaning in to speak to Edmund in a way that seems conspiratorial. Already so familiar and family-like. Jamie watches the way Dani pulls out of Edmund’s grasp. The way she is watching her new husband and mother interact. An outsider, somehow, but her expression says she’s not surprised by how quickly the two of them are getting on.

It’s not a movie moment when her eyes meet Jamie’s across the room. Time doesn’t slow and the DJ doesn’t suddenly begin playing some song about a great lost love. There’s no zoom in on Dani’s expression, no slow motion shot of Jamie minding her business by the wall. It’s nothing more than what it is:

A brief shared look that Jamie doesn’t let last very long.

There are a few reasons for this, the least of which is that she’s too far away to interpret whatever it is that Dani might be trying to convey. If either of them was part of some great narrative, she might know exactly what it is that’s going unsaid here, but it isn’t and she doesn’t. All she can know is the way that she feels. The things she put on the line earlier and the way Dani laughed off the simplicity of her choices.

Jamie looks away and settles her eyes on the bar in the corner. It’s a little early to turn in her drink ticket, but she starts toward it anyway. She still has her headset on and her walkie clipped to the collar of her shirt. That’ll have to be enough for now.

At the bar, she’s met with a few of the party guests and one other crew member, who lifts a glass of white wine at her in greeting. She smiles and leans against the bartop, rolling her fingers across its surface while she waits for the bartender.

It reminds her quite suddenly of the night before and the way Dani had been watching her and Trish from across the club. Either by chance or destiny, this recall only becomes more vivid when she hears a familiar voice from beside her.

“Hey,” Trish says, and she’s smiling a little when Jamie looks at her, but it’s a strange smile. Placating in a way, though Jamie doesn’t understand why it would be. “Some wedding, huh?”

Jamie laughs, the sound completely void of any humor. “Yeah,” she agrees. “Guess so.”

“Aren’t you on duty?” Trish asks, nodding at the bar. “Or on the clock or something?”

“Technically.” Jamie shrugs. “Figured I'd get an early start.”

“Can’t blame you for that.” The bartender finally takes notice of them, recognizing Trish’s bridesmaid dress and hurries over. “Two berry rose mojitos,” she tells him. “For the bride.”

At the final bit of information, his eyes widen and he steps away to start on the requested drinks. 

“Bride starting early too, then?” Jamie asks, and Trish laughs.

“Haven’t asked her. But I’ve found that saying that gets you a lot of things today.”

Jamie quirks an eyebrow, impressed. “Huh. So, the other mojito is—”

“For you, yeah,” Trish finishes. “Looks like you could use it.”

“What does that mean?” 

There’s an edge to Jamie’s tone as she asks it, already slipping into defense mode just in case, and it’s clear from the sympathetic look Trish sends her way that it’s noticeable. The way Trish looks at her makes Jamie a little nervous, a little uncomfortable. Almost like she might as well be lying flat on a lab table somewhere while Trish splits her to spine under a sterile, white light, mapping out and labelling whatever she finds inside.

Trish seems to consider the best way to answer her question for a moment before answering.

“I’m about to say something,” she begins, “that might make you a bit pissed at me.”

The bartender has good timing, and their drinks appear beside Trish’s elbow where it’s leaned on the bartop the moment she’s finished speaking. Jamie reaches for one immediately and knocks back a thick swallow before anything further can be said. As she brings the glass back down, she gestures at Trish to continue.

“You have feelings for Dani.”

Oh.

“And I think…”

Heart biting at her throat, Jamie takes a deep breath before prodding her with a, “Yeah?”

Trish cups her own drink in her hands, thumb tapping along the edge of its rim. “Dani has feelings for you.”

“Right,” Jamie says. “Anything else?”

The way she says it—that biting tone—makes Trish wince. “Well…” She turns and looks across the reception hall where Dani is being squeezed into a hug by Edmund’s mother. “That’s...I think that pretty much sums up the problem at hand.”

There’s a throbbing ache behind the right of Jamie’s rib cage that makes her wonder, perilously, if this is the end of the line. “What makes you think she has feelings for me?” she asks, needing to know. 

She hardly thinks there’s a point in denying Trish’s first statement. Anyone who bothered to look would notice the way she’s been holding her feelings in open palms whenever she’s even  _ near  _ Dani. But the second part is what she’s having trouble with, because—and here’s the thing— _ she thought so _ ,  _ too _ . She really did. But then there was that moment in the garden and there’s the way Dani is currently leaning into Edmund’s embrace as they stand talking to his parents and brother.

There’s a ring on Dani’s finger. One that her husband picked out just for her. She’s wearing a wedding dress and she’s  _ married  _ and there are so many reasons why Jamie needs to just  _ quit it already _ , but she can’t figure out how to turn off the flooding, torrential wave of  _ whatever the fuck _ whenever she so much as  _ glances  _ Dani’s way.

Even now, there’s this sense of completely unwarranted hope that’s beginning to blossom in her muscles and sinews, in the fine bones of her hands and chest, spreading warmth up her spine and straight into her head, where it dizzies and spins and  _ breathes  _ like something that’s alive. Something that she can’t escape.

When Jamie manages to look at Trish again, the other woman is giving her a hard look and it’s obvious from the harsh line of her mouth that she means business. “Because,” she says, “it doesn’t matter where you are in the room; she’s always facing you.”

Jamie can feel her heart hammering hard against her ribs; can hear her pulse throbbing in her ears. She wants to move, get out before Trish can say anything else, but her limbs are filled with white static and she can’t move. She doesn’t know what to say to that. Doesn’t have any clue where she would even begin in the first place. Her mind is awash with images of Dani—in her house, in her backyard, in the hotel, in the club the night before, the limo, standing in the doors to the garden and at that damn altar. The tilt of her shoulders, the openness of her body language. How her feet are always pointed right at Jamie, even when she’s talking to someone else. Even now, as she stands with her husband’s arm around her waist, her head turned to speak with Edmund’s mother—her body is pointed directly to where Jamie is standing at the bar.

“She never turns her back to you,” Trish is saying and, yeah. Okay. Maybe that’s true. “I’ve never seen her do that before. With anyone.”

“I—” Jamie starts, then shakes her head. She can’t think of a good way to end that sentence.

“Jamie, hey.” Trish gives her a sad smile and takes a step closer, one of her hands coming out to rest on Jamie’s upper arm. “I didn’t mean to...I don’t know  _ what  _ I meant to,” she says softly. “I didn’t want her to go through with this before. And maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but...This is going to sound so very  _ home-wrecker _ , but I just think you should have all the facts. Well…” She trails off for a moment. “What I’m pretty sure are the facts anyway.”

“What am I—” Jamie’s voice cuts and she has to clear her throat before she continues. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Another sad smile. “I just thought you should know,” Trish says. “I think...I don’t think this was the right decision for her. And I think it’s only a matter of time before Dani figures that out too, if she hasn’t already.”

“She chose this,” Jamie reminds her. “She  _ wanted  _ to get married.”

“Her  _ mother  _ wanted her to get married,” Trish corrects. “We’ve talked about it a hundred times. You should know that Dani’s mother is…” She finishes that thought by throwing a look across the room to Karen, who is currently gushing with Edmund’s mother like they’re old friends. “And Dani just wants to make her proud.”

“That’s a dumb reason to go through with this whole thing.”

Trish makes a face. “Well, I know that and you know that. But does she?”

They each turn now to look at Dani who, seeming to sense the sudden weight of their attention, looks up at them for a frightened moment before looking away. 

Jamie sighs, rubbing her palm across her face like she’s hoping it will wake her up. “It’s not my job to fix this,” she tries, and Trish squeezes her arm.

“I didn’t say it was. I just...I thought you should know.” She pauses for a moment. “I thought  _ one  _ of you should know.”

Jamie nods, feeling numb. Some part of her can understand that. “Okay.”

From their table, Carrie waves to get Trish’s attention and calls her name. Trish waves back and then turns to Jamie again. “If you need to talk to anyone…” she says and Jamie nods. Lets Trish squeeze her arm again and pull away, slipping back into the crowd of guests, leaving Jamie alone.

Jamie stands there for a long while, trying to will herself to move or think or do  _ anything _ .

It doesn’t work.

_______

Forty-five minutes into the reception, Shirley steals away both Edmund and Dani to film their talking heads out in the cool evening air of the city. Edmund is grinning and bright, happy without trying to be; Dani is a little more reserved, but still smiling—she doesn’t stop smiling and that’s the thing, isn’t it? That’s the tell.

What Edmund tells the camera: 

“Honestly, she’s so much better than I imagined my wife would be. She’s smart and funny and beautiful. I can see myself falling in love with her really easily.”

What Dani tells the camera:

“I think if I’d been the kind of girl who imagined my fairytale wedding, it would have been like this. He’s funny and handsome and my friends already love him. My mom does, too. This is...perfect. Really.”

_______

Jamie just barely makes it inside the bathroom stall before the panic attack descends like a layer of smoke, choking her lungs and making her hyperventilate. She sags back against the door of the stall, slamming her eyes shut to the beige tiled wall and tries not to slip away. Somewhere, out in the reception hall, everyone else is talking and laughing and cheering the happy couple. She can hear the cloud of dozens of conversations lifting through the walls to reach her in the restroom.

It takes everything inside of her to keep her from breaking down into some horrifying combination of laughter, tears, and screams. None of her thoughts are making sense, which is fitting because  _ nothing  _ is making sense anymore.

Bending at the waist, she rests her hands on her knees and tries to calm down. Breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth. Opens her watery, stinging eyes and tries to count the dots on the tiles beneath her feet. Anything to ground her. Anything to keep her sane.

Her legs have just begun to feel less numb, less buzzing, when a voice rings through her earpiece. Saying her name. Something about the first dance. Asking if everything is set for it.

She stands up again, leaning her head back against the cool, metal door and holds her walkie up, pressing the button down to say, “Be right there.”

For reasons she doesn’t understand, she sounds completely calm. Put together, even. But she isn’t. She’s falling apart at the seams. Becoming completely unhinged. She’s falling in love with a woman she doesn’t have a snowball’s shot in hell with because she apparently has no self-control. How? How did this happen?

“Alright,” the voice says, “we’re getting everyone into position.”

And Jamie can practically see it already—the ease with which Edmund will dance with Dani. The way his arms will wrap around her, the way she’ll lean into him as they move. How he’ll lean in and how she’ll lean up and maybe some of that strange tension will be gone enough that she’ll kiss him for real this time. Maybe she’ll stare at Jamie the whole time and Jamie will have no idea what the hell she’s supposed to do with that. 

But probably—definitely—Jamie will fall a little more in love with Dani simply because she’s hurting so much. Just because she can’t have her.

And isn’t that just the world’s cruelest joke? 

It’s when she goes to leave the stall that she realizes she’s crying and has to use a scrap of scratchy toilet paper to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. In the mirror, her reflection looks almost...normal. Jamie wonders if it’s too much to ask for every part of her to give away how much she’s unraveling.

It probably is. Lately, it seems, she’s gotten good at wanting more than the universe is capable of giving her.

_______

Shirley is standing at the edge of what’s been deemed the “dance floor” and Jamie ducks herself to the side where the cameras are, using them as coverage to keep herself out of the line of fire. Horace spots her from where he’s leaned against the bar and comes over just as she’s running a worried hand through her hair.

“All good, boss?” he asks, and they’ve been colleagues long enough for her to know that this question is more of a generality than it is specifically geared towards the here-and-now. He’s got that sympathetic, somewhat fatherly look about him that he sometimes gets when he thinks she’s trying to hold herself together for everyone and she doesn’t really have the patience to deal with that.

“Yeah, would you mind making sure their mics are all set?” 

As she says it, she nods to Edmund and Dani, who are standing up by the DJ, waiting for further instructions. She feels more than sees the way Horace stiffens in surprise at the request. Usually, his duties are limited to off-body microphones. Jamie prefers to deal with lavs and otherwise on her own, mostly because she’s never had any trouble blaming herself when something goes wrong.

He doesn’t ask if she’s sure or anything like that, but he does wait for a beat, like he’s half-expecting her to change her mind at the last moment. When she doesn’t, he just nods and steps around the dance floor to get to Dani and Edmund. Jamie is careful not to watch as he double checks everything, too worried that doing so will lead to another round of hyperventilating, which she  _ so  _ doesn’t need right now.

By the time Horace gets back, she’s ready to vibrate right out of her skin and, apparently, so is Shirley, who is making a lot of hand gestures at a couple producers and the camera crew, eager to get started. 

A handful of seconds later, the DJ leans into his handheld mic and says, “And now let’s show some love to the happy couple as they join one another in their first dance!”

Applause follows the announcement, a few cheers here and there. Dani is led into the middle of the dance floor as “From the Ground Up” begins playing, Edmund bringing her into a slow sort of sway as the cameras circle them, capturing every moment. She’s smiling at something he’s saying, but Jamie can’t quite hear it over the music and has to hope—even as she doesn’t want to—that the mic will pick it up for later. 

Horace stands beside Jamie, silent, and, normally, this would be the part where Jamie would be looking around at the guests. Watching the way the couple’s mothers dab their eyes, the way their friends talk amongst themselves, talking in little wishes and hopes for the future—for this whole crazy thing to work out for the two people dancing in the middle of the hall. In the final cut of the episode, she knows that the voices of the “experts” will come over the footage, talking about how the two of them are still strangers. How they’ve made a commitment to one another. How important the first dance is in showing their “couple style” or whatever it is they’ll decide to call it.

But Jamie just stands there, surrounded by strangers and coworkers, cameras and producers. She stands there beneath the dimmed lights of the reception hall and watches the curling shine of Dani’s hair, the dip of her neck, the curve of her wrist as she rests one hand on Edmund’s shoulder.

She’s a dream—part nightmare, part fairytale—and there isn’t an inch of her that could possibly be real. She’s beautiful and star-lit and it hurts so much to look at her that Jamie doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to look away.

“Seriously, kid. You doing okay?” Horace asks, breaking up the loud roaring noise in Jamie’s ears with a calm ease that she can’t help but envy.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just...tired.” She tries her hardest to sound convincing and mellow, but knowing someone is sometimes a two-way street, and she knows that Horace isn’t likely to let her off the hook. 

“You just seem a bit...down. Have for a little while now. I know this gig isn’t easy all the time. Lord knows we could all take a break from Shirley.” He chuckles at this, and she can’t help but join in, even if she sounds a bit pained by it. “But I’ve got your back. All the way. Anything you need, I’m right there.”

Edmund gives Dani a twirl that makes a few people around them laugh. Dani shakes her head, amused, as he twists her back into his arms and her eyes catch Jamie’s for a fraction of a second. Just long enough for Jamie to finally make herself look away. 

“I know,” Jamie says. “Thank you.” Horace smiles and nods, looking kind of like he might hug her if they were different people. “It’s just...I’ve got some...personal stuff going on.”

As she says it, the sound of Dani’s laugh catches her off guard. She turns her head, eyes like a compass as they land on their truest north: Dani’s lovely, exuberant smile. Horace must follow her line of sight, because he makes a humming noise of understanding that creates a pit in the bottom of Jamie’s stomach.

“Right,” he gruffs, like he’s talking to a wild animal. 

Jamie imagines that he must be afraid she’ll run away or something.

“Yeah,” she hears herself say.

A heavy hand moves to rest on her shoulder, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “Well,” Horace says next, “whatever you need.”

Jamie nods and says, “Thanks,” because there’s nothing else to say.

_______

There are other wedding things: toasts and cheers and the cutting of the cake. Jamie is a lot of things—a victim of her own slavering heart seemingly at the top of the list—but she has never been a delegator, so she decides to try something new and leaves Horace in charge for a few minutes. 

Calls it a smoke break and then slips out into the halls of the hotel, wandering through them until she happens upon another wedding reception in another hall and steps inside. Counts her blessings as she realizes that she’s found the right one.

Owen and Hannah are standing side-by-side in front of their own wedding cake, not unlike the one Jamie’s just left Dani and Edmund with. It’s a big thing, white and frosted, and she can just see Rob and Carly at a table nearby, laughing and talking to one another as they watch Owen delicately eat a bite of cake from the fork Hannah is offering him. 

The energy is different. Jamie is certain of it. There’s something ebbing and growing between Owen and his new wife that she is certain she is not imagining. They have an ease to the way they lean into one another. The way they laugh, the way their eyes meet. Something that says,  _ i found you i found you i found you _ , which is more than she thought to hope for when it came to this whole thing.

And, for as much as she imagined it, they look different than she expected they do when they stand beside one another. Better. Perfect. Like two jagged pieces of something that was broken coming together to make a complete shape.

No one sees her and Jamie doesn’t interrupt. There’ll be time for that later, even though her muscles scream for her to run to her friend and fall into his easy compassion. Hide herself in him and let him smooth glue over the places she’s begun to crack before she even  _ attempts  _ to brave the wilds again.

She keeps to herself. Watches how Owen throws his head back into each and every laugh; watches the way Hannah looks at him, dark eyes glowing with an emotion Jamie has no trouble recognizing. It’s something good, at least, to have come out of everything.

As short as the stick she’s drawn is, there are miracles happening everywhere else.

_______

Later, Jamie mikes the honeymoon suite and waits for Edmund and Dani. Outside, the city is dark, lit up by the pale lights of the buildings, of the cars. She stands at the window for a while, arms crossed and staring out, imagining an escape that will never come. 

The suite is lovely as always—rose petals waiting on the bed and a gift basket of champagne and chocolates resting on the table by the sofa. It’s meant to look as picturesque as possible, given all the cliches of romance; with some couples, it fosters a connection to what marriage usually means, how wedding nights  _ usually  _ go. The idea is for these couples to fall in love and want to stay married, and the show doesn’t hesitate to throw everything it can into making that work. 

But she can’t help but want to brush the rose petals into a bin, to pour the champagne down the bathroom sink, and lay petty waste to whatever other touches of fantasy might be placed around the suite. She feels like a teenager, or like a girl in a music video for some love ballad where she rapidly falls apart on camera. 

Instead of doing any of those things, she does her job and, twenty minutes later, Shirley’s voice comes over her walkie to inform her that Dani and Edmund are on their way up.

When the episode airs, there will be no sign of prior intrusion when Edmund opens the suite’s door. There will be no sign that Jamie was ever there—no sign of Jamie  _ at all _ because she’ll be behind the cameras, supervising Horace as he booms the whole thing.

Edmund and Dani will share a glass of champagne, joking and laughing at one another like they’re already good friends. Some of the previously captured audio will play on a voice over—Edmund expressing his excitement to spend the night with his wife; Dani saying something about wanting to get to know each other. For the first time that Jamie’s worked on the show, no one will say anything in regards to sex or other intimacy. The producers won’t even  _ ask  _ about those things in their short interviews. 

And thank God for that. Thank God for the way it puts Jamie a little more at ease. Her palms are clammy, anyway. Her mind is swimming, anyway. And she’s felt on the verge of collapse since Trish’s conversation by the bar, but it will reach an all-time high when Dani says, “I’m going to need help getting this dress off,” as she makes her way into the bedroom, Edmund at her heels.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Edmund jokes, and that’s where the editors will work their magic. It’ll cut from this conversation to the two of them getting into the bed beside one another and saying their goodnights and the audience will assume that Edmund  _ did  _ help, that there were no other problems.

But there were. There  _ are. _

Dani freezes as Edmund says it, her shoulders hiking up a little as she turns to eye him warily. “Actually,” she says. “I...Is there anyway I could get…?” Her eyes, wide and frightened, shoot to Shirley and one of the other producers, hovering near Jamie at the back. 

Shirley—although she looks a bit disappointed—nods immediately. “Yeah, of course.” She turns, scanning the scant crew they have in the room until her eyes settle on Jamie, the only person who’s not holding some vital piece of equipment. “Jamie, would you…?” 

She never finishes the question, but she doesn’t have to. 

What are the odds, Jamie wonders, then promptly stops wondering because Dani is looking at her now, shoulders bared in the warm glow of the hotel lamps. 

“Yeah,” Jamie says as her pulse thunders in her veins, drumming behind her ears. Her breath catches in pained puffs as dread jitters up her spine. “’Course.”

“Okay,” Dani says, her voice caught, and then she turns and goes to the bathroom just off the bedroom, leaving Jamie to follow.

She has to pass by Edmund to get there, but he simply steps aside and gives her a friendly, close-lipped smile like he’s trying to convey something.  _ I get it _ , the smile says,  _ I make her nervous _ .

And  _ yes _ , of course. But  _ no _ . Maybe not in the way he thinks.

Dani is standing by the shower when Jamie steps into the bathroom, closing the door behind herself and leaving them alone for the first time in hours. At the sight of her—beautiful and radiant even in the terrible bathroom lighting—the drip of panic in Jamie’s heart becomes a flood of utter mortification. Her skin feels like it’s on fire, in absolute danger of boiling her bones and peeling her muscles away from them. 

“I forgot my other clothes,” says Dani. 

“I can get them,” says Jamie. “Just—” 

She goes to leave, but is stopped by the smooth skin of Dani’s cool fingers gripping the fine bones of her wrist and halting her. When she looks up, Dani blinks and draws her hand away hastily, as if she hadn’t meant to do that. 

“It’s okay,” she says. “I can...I mean, maybe you can just help me out of this dress first?” She laughs a little, like she’s making fun of herself. “It’s...It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world.”

Jamie nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Sure. Turn around for me?”

Dani does, turning until her back is facing Jamie and reaching up to pull her hair over her shoulder and out of the way. “Thank you,” she whispers and Jamie catches her eyes in the mirror, nodding. 

“You’re welcome,” she says without hesitation. She turns her gaze back to the soft, pale expanse of Dani’s back as she lifts her shaking hands for the zipper. Gripping some of the fabric with her left hand, she pinches the zipper tightly between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand and begins to drag it down, very deliberately not looking at each new bit of skin the slow drag of it reveals. 

In her mind, she is remembering the night before, on that street outside the club; the shrug of Dani’s shoulders as she slipped Jamie’s jacket on, the sound of the cars slipping past on the road just behind her; the press of her fingers as she cradled Jamie’s hand in her own. 

She stops when the zipper is over halfway done, the split of the fabric dipping into a V just above the small of Dani’s back. It’s better that way—better that she steps back before she does something silly or desperate or entirely inappropriate. All three, perhaps.

Dani is still for what feels like a long time, and then she turns around and Jamie realizes how close they’re standing. She can feel the rush of Dani’s breath as she inhales short sips of air, just as shaken as Jamie feels by the whole thing. It would really take just a tilt of Jamie’s head—that’s  _ all _ —but she forces herself not to move even though she thinks ( _ maybe maybe maybe _ ) that Dani would kiss her back. 

If only for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Dani says, so soft that Jamie feels the way her cheeks heat up.

“Why?” she asks.

A pink tongue darts out to wet Dani’s dry bottom lip. She winces, almost like she doesn’t mean to. “I just am,” she admits, like it’s a secret she’d been intending to die with.

And,  _ oh,  _ isn’t Jamie’s heart just fit to  _ burst _ ? That conversation by the garden left her so raw and wanting and here’s the apology. Here’s the part where the lights dim and the piano plays soft notes, long and lingering, because Jamie is going to do it: she’s going to kiss her and she doesn’t  _ care  _ if Dani’s husband is waiting outside because she has to know.

She has to know if Trish is right and it’s so hard not to think that  _ yes absolutely she is  _ when Dani is turned to her and so close, so open. Doesn’t she deserve a chance? 

(The answer is _yes, of course she does_ but this is not how these things go.)

(There are rules in love as there are in war;  _ lead me not into temptation _ and all that.)

(And, importantly:  _ not like this _ .)

“Don’t be,” Jamie says and she finally,  _ blessedly  _ takes a step back and away. “You don’t owe anyone anything, Poppins.”

Dani is silent for a long time—nothing to say, maybe—and Jamie has visions of sweeping her into her arms, of kissing her  _ hard  _ and not letting go, but they are each living a life where these things are not an option so she stands her ground instead. 

What Dani says just before Jamie slips out and away: “Yeah. I know.”

_______

“Is this allowed?” Owen asks as he opens the door to find you standing on the other side. 

“Probably not,” Jamie answers, amazed, as always, by the calm he can so readily supply her without meaning to. “But I missed your wedding, so I thought: what the hell?”

His serious expression lasts for all of two more seconds before it becomes this blinding, happy grin. He reaches out and tugs her into a tight hug that Jamie returns at once, closing her eyes and just barely keeping herself from falling apart right then and there.

It’s been barely thirty minutes since she left Dani standing in that bathroom—since she went and grabbed Dani’s suitcase and left it by the bathroom door for her to change. They filmed the goodnights: Edmund lying down in bed and the two of them smiling and laughing at some silly joke or another; a kiss to Dani’s forehead and a quiet  _ Night _ from either of them, then lights off for a few seconds. 

Just long enough for Shirley to say, “Okay, we’ve got it,” and declare them done for the day, and then they went about getting everything taken apart. Jamie and Horace de-miked the room, Jamie careful not to look at Dani—sitting up in the bed watching them—as she did it, not even bothering to say a goodnight of her own before she rushed out of the suite to beg Owen’s room number off another producer.

She wants to collapse into the floor and not bother getting up. She wants to go home and crawl beneath her covers, to disappear entirely. But she can’t. She has duties, responsibilities—a flight to catch in the morning. And, importantly: a best friend to hug.

“So,” she says as casually as she can manage, pulling back enough to look at Owen a little better, “where’s the missus?”

At the mention of her, Owen’s eyes light up. “The bedroom,” he says, and, when she wiggles her eyebrows, he shoves her shoulder lightly. “Stop that. Or I won’t introduce you.”

“No worries there,” Jamie tells him. “We’ve already met.”

Owen narrows his eyes. “That’s right. I forgot you were a traitor.”

“Well, that’s your problem.”

“I suppose it is.”

“I thought I heard the door,” another voice says, sweeter and lighter than either of theirs.

Hannah is standing behind Owen, coming closer to the door with a smile on her face as she recognizes Jamie standing there.

“Right, yes,” Owen begins, and his posture changes to give her room to move closer, his arm coming out automatically to rest around her waist once she’s near enough. “Jamie just dropped by.”

Hannah smiles, this lovely thing that makes Owen look like he’s about to swoon. “Jamie, yes,” she says. “We’ve met, I believe.” She offers a hand that Jamie doesn’t hesitate to take.

“We have,” Jamie confirms.

“Owen’s told me so much about you.”

“Has he?” Jamie gives Owen a look. “I promise only some of it is true.”

This gets her a laugh. “Oh, they were all good things. I don’t think he went more than ten minutes without wishing you could have been there tonight.”

This squeezes in Jamie’s chest. “Yeah, I know the feeling.” She glances at Owen and then back at Hannah. “I’ll let you two get your rest. Big day and all. I just wanted to come give my congratulations and all.”

A serious look from Owen. “Thank you,” he says genuinely and she nods, smiles, though she’s aching all the more now from the way he looks with his arm around Hannah—how perfectly they seem to have come together.

She is very suddenly and profoundly aware of the hollow in her own chest; the empty bed waiting for her at home; her sweater tucked away in one of Dani’s suitcases. 

Desperate times.

“Of course,” she manages, taking a step back. “Goodnight, you two.”

“Goodnight,” Hannah says, a happy wave sent Jamie’s way.

Owen sends her one, too, and she can feel them watching her all the way up the hall, until she turns the corner and disappears.

_______

As expected, her bed really  _ is  _ empty.

Sheets drawn up and pillows fluffed by Owen on his way out just that morning. Lifetimes away. Jamie sits on the edge of the mattress and slowly unties her trainers, rubbing at her sore feet as she sits back up and stares at the closet door just across from her. 

She’s been alone before. Gotten good at it, even, and it isn’t on her to  _ fix this _ . That’s what she’d told Trish, what she’s told herself. 

How is any of this  _ her fault _ ?

It isn’t.

Jamie has feelings for Dani. Strong ones.  _ Deep _ ones.

And maybe Dani has similar ones for Jamie, but, here’s the thing:

Jamie never asked for this.

And neither did Dani.

That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?

Neither of them has actually said those words to one another. Dani hasn’t ever asked her to stay and Jamie has never promised she would.

So Jamie goes to bed alone.

She tells herself she was always, always going to.

..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i mention "From the Ground Up" by Dan + Shay which i chose (and i'm sorry if you like this song) bc it seems like the kind of dramatic and cheesy thing this show would choose.


	6. Honeymoons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'd apologize for the wait between updates, but this is almost 10k so i'm not going to. 
> 
> things are heating up now. i hope you enjoy it!
> 
> big thank you thank you thank you to everyone who's left kudos and commented! it means the world to me that so many of you take the time to share your lovely thoughts. 
> 
> ps. i have never been to Santorini, so...take my exposition on it with a grain of salt pls

In less than two weeks, Dani has gone from _single_ to _engaged-to-a-stranger_ to _Mrs. Edmund O’Mara_ . It’s been a bit of a rough transition from one to the other, and that’s made very clear from the way Dani’s eyebrows shoot upwards when the _Aegean_ employee calls her that last one.

That surprise, for the record, is certainly worth noting, but not for the same reasons Jamie’s keeping tabs on everything else. Most of the annoyance in this case comes from the fact that it’s the 21st century and the ticket is listed under Dani’s government name, which still boasts _Clayton_ as her surname. The assumption that she should take her husband’s last name _and_ first name is so very antiquated that even Shirley looks shocked and annoyed. Enough to push herself forward, past Edmund and Dani, so she can take over the ticket retrieval.

“Are you excited?” Edmund says to Dani, his grip on his suitcase white-knuckled, like he’s trying to keep from grabbing for his wife’s hand.

“Yeah,” Dani tells him. “Just...tired.”

Jamie doesn’t let herself read too much into that. If they were filming right now and the cameras caught that part, she’s certain the producers would. They’d play it up—splice it in with some sewn together dialogue clips that would make it seem like Dani and Edmund spent their wedding night in the most traditional sense. But the producers _aren’t_ there, which means Jamie shouldn’t even be eavesdropping at all because she’s not on the clock. She’s just standing around with one other camera guy, waiting for Shirley to get everything figured out.

The rest of the sparse crew they send on the honeymoons is already ahead of them, set to land in Santorini a few hours before they do. By the time Edmund and Dani arrive, their room will be ready and waiting for them, hassle-free, just like it will be for the other two couples when they arrive on their own staggered schedules.

They don’t need more than one camera, one sound mixer, and a producer to capture what little Shirley will want filmed on the flight itself. For everything else, Edmund and Dani have been given their own camcorder for their video diaries already.

“Well, we’ll have, like, three hours to sleep, right?” Edmund jokes and Dani laughs, but it sounds too sharp to be real. Edmund doesn’t notice.

“Yeah, definitely.” 

She doesn’t look at Jamie. Jamie pretends she’s not looking either. It’s a mature thing she’s doing, because the only other option is to acknowledge the longing that is wrapping itself around her legs, following her every step like a hungry dog, and it’s far too early for that.

Shirley has retrieved their tickets. She hands them out and then strong-arms all of them toward the security line.

_______

By the time the plane is boarding, they have about twenty minutes of footage, most of which involves Dani and Edmund sitting side-by-side outside their gate. Shirley buzzes around trying to frame a more romantic situation for them to capture, but there’s nothing to be done about it. Waiting around in an airport at a crowded gate surrounded by strangers is hardly the most passionate of pastimes. Not even Shirley can spin that into something from a fairytale.

Jamie is fairly proud of the impression she’s doing of someone who is unattached and carefree up until she almost trips over Dani on her way to the gate once boarding starts. She spent most of the wait in line at a bagel shop near their gate and trying not to notice the way Dani kept turning her head, as if trying to find her. She’s trying her best not to put much stock in what Trish said at the reception, but it gets harder every time she notices the position of Dani’s feet, the way she changes how she’s sitting next to Edmund when Jamie takes an empty seat at a bench to her right.

And now _this_ : the solid catch of Dani’s arm around her as she stumbles, the way her eyes widen with concern, how she turns to keep her from falling. 

“Woah,” she breathes. “You okay?”

Jamie steadies herself, clutching onto Dani’s arm to do so, and then rights her posture. “Yeah,” she says. “Sorry. Such a klutz.” She doesn’t pull away just yet, content to let Dani keep an arm around her.

“It’s okay,” Dani says with a laugh. “Me too.” 

It’s unfair that, even in the unflattering light of the airport, she can still manage to look so goddamn darling. There’s an air of faint exhaustion to her eyes, to the pretty set of her mouth, but amusement dances there, too. Something else: _affection_.

Jamie doesn’t think she could read that emotion any other way than as it is.

They’re holding up the rest of the people behind them. Up ahead a good ways, Edmund has stopped as well so that he can stand and watch them curiously. Jamie pulls out of Dani’s grasp when she spots him, worried he’ll see right through her. But he doesn’t seem to. When Dani waves a hand at him—a gesture that says _i’m good be there in a sec_ —he smiles and turns around, continuing down the hall to the plane.

“How...um...how are you?” Dani asks once they begin moving again. The grip she has on her suitcase handle seems too tight. Jamie glances at it, then away.

“I’m okay,” Jamie tells her. Not a lie exactly, but a slanted version of the truth, perhaps. “What about you? How’s married life treating you?”

Dani hesitates before answering just so. Blinks a few times, rapidly, and then lets out a long exhale. “It’s fine,” she says, then, “It’s good. Still really early on and we’re getting to know each other, but it’s great.”

Right.

Jamie nods. “Glad to hear it.”

“I guess we’ll have three hours to talk though, right?” 

It’s pitched like it’s a joke, but Jamie isn’t clear on what the punchline would be. She shrugs in response. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Yeah.” 

And maybe she’s being a bit too cold, but it’s been a headache of a spin going from point A to point B with Dani and Jamie isn’t even sure where she _stands_ from one minute to the next. They’re friends. She thinks that’s true. But, then, friends don’t often feel the way she does about their friends. They don’t usually have charged moments in hotel suite bathrooms and it definitely doesn’t hurt _this much_ to simply talk to them.

Or so she thinks.

“What about you?” Dani asks, trying to make conversation even as they’re approaching the entryway of the plane. “Do you like flying?”

“Like is a strong word,” Jamie responds, smiling at the stewardess as she steps aboard. Dani is so close behind her that she bumps into Jamie a little and the sudden touch makes Jamie jump in surprise. “Um…” She clears her throat. Tries to get back on track. “We never used to fly business class with you guys, me and the crew. So I’m used to spending flights with the biggest headphones I can find on, trying not to punch a kid for kicking my seat.”

Dani laughs, delighted and the sound rings through Jamie’s chest. “I can understand that. It’s like people forget how to parent as soon as they’ve boarded.”

“Yeah, guess you’ve got experience with that, right? Long way from America.” She’s at her seat now and she slides her backpack beneath it, looking over at Dani who is putting her suitcase in the overhead above her own seat, just in front of Jamie’s. 

Dani turns and opens her mouth, like she’s just about to answer, but she’s interrupted before she can by Edmund, who is already seated by the window.

“You didn’t want the window, did you?” he asks. “We can switch.”

Jamie glances at the back of his curly head and then takes her seat, watching as Dani responds to him and then looks back at Jamie helplessly. “Have a good flight,” Jamie hears herself say once Dani’s eyes are on her again. It comes out a little more strained than she means for it too, words that she’s never said in that particular order. Like it’s too formal for the moment. Too distant.

But, if Dani thinks the same, she doesn’t say anything. She just nods, her expression turning serious in an instant. “Yeah,” she says. “You, too.” And then she sits down beside Edmund and Jamie can’t see her anymore.

_______

Two hours later, Jamie is listening to the loudest playlist on her Spotify, knowing that—if nothing else—the noise of it will keep her from being able to linger on one thought for too long. For the most part, it’s working. Anytime she drifts off into the memory of Dani’s skin or smile or laugh

( _whenever she imagines herself showing up at Dani’s door; Dani opening it, moonlit and wonderful; Jamie kissing her before she can speak; Dani kissing her back; pushing her in, against the door, against the_ **_bed_ ** _and_ —)

some loud drum solo will snap her out of it. Make her turn her eyes from the back of Dani’s seat to the window, to the clouds drifting lazily past. Lofty and loose. Free and unfettered. Like herself. Unlike Dani, who has a ring on her finger and a husband at her side and wouldn’t it just be perfect if she could—

Something warm touches Jamie’s upper arm, smoothing across her skin and catching her attention. When she turns, Dani is there, smiling curiously and she’s the very last thing Jamie expected to see. She pulls the left side of her headphones to rest behind her ear and frowns.

“Everything okay?” she asks, eyes darting around the cabin in search of her previous seat partner, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

“Yeah, I switched seats with Carl,” Dani says.

“Carl,” Jamie repeats, tongue thick in her mouth.

“The...camera guy?” 

“Right. Carl. I know.”

She does know, or: some part of her mind does. But that information is buried deep right now because Dani is smiling at her and her hand is still flat on Jamie’s arm, fingers brushing idly. 

Dani’s eyes crinkle at the edges a little as she shakes her head, looking amused by Jamie’s somewhat fugue state. At least one of them is able to find the humor in the moment. “What are you listening to?” she asks, nodding at the headphones. 

Given the volume the current song is playing at, Jamie is certain she can hear it. “Oh, um…” She halts for a moment, gathering her thoughts into something that will actually make sense once spoken aloud. “I just…” She grabs her phone from her lap and holds it up so that Dani can see rather than even attempting a proper answer. 

Dani looks at the screen for a moment and then meets Jamie’s eyes again. Smiles brilliantly. “Can I?” she asks, gesturing towards the headphones, and Jamie nods, but she’s not really sure what Dani plans to do. If it were earbuds, she could just take one of them, but it’s not, so—

“Oh,” Jamie breathes, not quite meaning to, when Dani leans her head in and presses her ear close to Jamie’s own so she can hear better.

“Do you like musicals?” Dani asks, and her cheek brushes against Jamie’s as she speaks because that’s how close they are. 

“Yeah,” Jamie says, voice a little too squeaky to be normal, but she hardly thinks she can be blamed for that given the circumstances. “They’re...I like them.”

“There’s this great one called _She Loves Me_ that did a revival a few years ago. It’s my favorite. Would you want to…?” She pokes at Jamie’s phone, making the screen light up, and then just leaves her hand on Jamie’s lap.

Jamie blinks. “Won’t Edmund—” she begins, not quite sure where that question is going, but Dani seems to. Cuts her off before she can finish.

“He’s fast asleep,” she says. She pulls away a little so they can look at one another again. “That’s why I asked Carl to switch.”

“Right.” Jamie nods, dry-mouthed.

“We don’t have to listen to it,” Dani says, suddenly backtracking as her smile slips away. She thinks her company isn’t wanted, Jamie realizes, and it makes her chest ache because it’s not that. Really, it isn’t. It’s just that Jamie is— 

Well, she’s—

“Poppins,” she says, forcing a smile of her own to break past the pained press of her lips, “I’d love to.” She unlocks her phone and hands it over, watches as dawn breaks across the lines of Dani’s expression, filling her eyes with lights and miracles and promises she can’t keep and has no business making in the first place.

But Jamie doesn’t mind, and she realizes this quite suddenly as Dani plays the first song, settling down to press their cheeks together again. Her hands stay clasped around Jamie’s phone, but her cheek moves as she mouths along with the music and Jamie can’t bring herself to care about anything else.

_______

Santorini is kind and warmer than London, brushes salt-sharp wind against Jamie’s flushed cheeks through the window of her taxi, the curving streets passing by in a colorful blur just beyond. Carl snores beside her, somehow immune to the royal blue melting of the horizon spread out below across the splashing waves. 

Jamie stares out, past his lolling, unaware head to stare into the swirling beryl ocean and think of Dani’s eyes, her fever-hot skin pressed to Jamie’s neck, the tickling brush of her hair against Jamie’s collarbones. The way she pulled away when Edmund woke up, sending an apologetic look Jamie’s way so she could coax Carl into consciousness and reclaim her seat. Leaving Jamie sitting there alone.

The footage at the airport was much more to Shirley’s liking. Dani clung to Edmund’s arm as they made their way to the baggage claim, laughing as they talked lowly in voices meant just for their ears. She didn’t look at Jamie once, which was fine, really, because Jamie was working. Jamie was doing her job and listening to every word she possibly could without hearing a thing.

Focus on the moment. Don’t think about it.

The hotel is this grand, white thing set into the hills like a castle. Jamie feels like a child in comparison. They don’t need footage of this, which means she can keep her distance as Dani and Edmund get out of their own taxi and follow after Shirley. Hands linked. Fingers laced.

Jamie takes her room key and pretends to be interested in a painting by the reception desk so she doesn’t have to share an elevator with the others. Doesn’t want to see Dani and Edmund disappear into another hotel room. Counts to twenty after the elevator doors shut behind them and then presses the call button.

Her own room feels empty. Hollowed out. There’s a lovely view of the island, spread out across the mountainside below. She can see the trickling stream of passers-by several streets away and she stands by her window for a very long time just breathing. Only breathing.

In and out. Steady and slow.

_______

A few hours later, Edmund looks into the camera outside the vineyard that’s been booked for dinner and says: “I wanted to get married at first sight so that I could have a partner to share these experiences with. I did a little traveling before I came to London for school, and it was always so lonely, even though it was fun. Having Dani here to share this with me is amazing.”

Jamie’s arms ache as she holds up the boom mic, headphones pinching her ears. She feels hot all over and the knowledge of why only serves to make her all the more frustrated. Edmund is a nice guy. This is what she tells herself. He means well and he seems like a good partner. Good intentions and all. Packed with a charming, school-boy smile and a kindness that bubbles out of him in every interaction. The audience will love him. They’ll love Dani. They’ll be rooting for them to stay married longer than just the set eight weeks. Jamie knows it.

She repeats these things over and over in a sort of mindless chant as Shirley gets Dani from the restaurant. Has them switch places. Brings her out to stand before the camera, directly under the mic, and says:

“Why did you want to get married at first sight?”

And Jamie hates this part. Hates the answers they always get when this is asked because, even if they are genuine, they’re always the same. 

_Because I was alone._

_Because I want a family._

_Because I’ve always wanted to be married._

_To have a partner._

_To be in love._

And Dani is going to say a version of that, chopped up and Frankenstein’d together to make some sort of electric, hybrid answer. Some combination of wanting love and equality and partnership. Adventure, acceptance. The works.

What she’s not expecting is the way Dani’s face falls. The way she becomes very, very still. Cogs turning, rusted and creaking, behind her expression. She looks caught. Trapped. 

Behind her, the sky is orange and luminous, daylight drifting and retreating; giving way to ink-blot shadows. Silence washes over them, deep enough to drown in, and Jamie can practically hear the mess of Dani’s thoughts bumping around in her head. Searching for a way out, a proper escape. Dani’s eyes flicker down at the ground below them, breeze swinging through her hair and catching Jamie’s vision, numbing her mind and blood and everything else.

Funny how that happens. How Dani can do that. Not meaning to.

“Dani?” Shirley prods, her voice the most gentle Jamie’s ever heard it. 

Dani looks up at her and, unblinking, and shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says, the tone of her voice off. Sounding _wrong_. Unlike her. “What was the question?”

This must catch Shirley off guard because it takes her a moment to respond. “Why did you want to get married at first sight?”

“Right,” Dani says, a little laugh thrown in there for pure effect. “Um…” She trails off and then clears her throat of something that might be a muted sob, but Jamie’s not sure. “I’ve always wanted to...find my person. Like...someone who could, not only know me, but _understand_ me. Love me anyway. I guess we all hope we’ll end up with our soulmate, right?”

She ends there. Cuts herself off. Doesn’t say anything else.

Against the setting sun, her silhouette is striking.

_______

Owen texts her that night a picture of his and Hannah’s suite, the sinking sun beyond their private balcony. A happy message. Excited. Jamie mirrors his energy in her response when she takes a smoke break. 

Leans back against the rough stone wall behind her to the sound of Dani’s laugh in the restaurant and looks at the moon.

_______

The next morning. Early. Touring ancient Akrotiri with a decent-sized crew. Wiping Horace’s forehead for him while he booms the whole thing in the sticky heat caught in the stone walls of the old village as the tour guide drones on. Shots of Edmund’s arm around Dani’s waist. Dani’s eyes lit up with genuine curiosity, asking question after question as they follow along after the guide.

Edmund telling the camera: “I think we’re getting really getting along well. We have a lot in common. She’s definitely more comfortable with physical intimacy now. Still haven’t kissed!” A laugh. That charming smile. Right hand up, middle finger crossed over index. “But we’ll see! I really just want her to move at her own pace. So…”

Dani scraping her sweat-slicked hair into a ponytail and Jamie watching the whole thing from a few feet away. Watching the sunlight gleam of her skin. The slender lines of her neck. What it would feel like against Jamie’s lips. Against her tongue.

A seafood restaurant overlooking the ocean. Edmund telling stories from boyhood. Dani listening in silence. Letting him talk. Nodding along. Shirley throws a thumbs-up at another producer when Dani reaches out and puts her hand over Edmund’s on the table when he opens up about never really fitting in. Saying she knows that feeling.

Jamie marks the number of times Dani looks at her on her arm with the pen she likes to keep behind her ear. By noon, she stops for fear of covering every inch of her skin with blue ink.

Later: a museum that evening as the heat wanes. A bookstore that Dani practically has to be dragged out of.

“It’s so beautiful here,” Dani says during a rare moment when Jamie is not busy and Edmund is not beside her. She’s staring out at the village, but the looks she keeps sending Jamie are surely in the triple digits by now. “It’s like a fairytale.”

“Yeah,” Jamie says, watching the spread of the ocean so far from where they’re standing. The color of the sky. Dani’s eyes, always. Wants to reach for Dani’s hand and has to grit her teeth to keep herself from it. “It really is.”

_______

That night, after dinner, Dani is wine-drunk and giggly. She leans into Edmund’s arm as they make their way back to their hotel, babbling about the high-points of the day. Edmund is amused and clearly a little in love already given the way he keeps laughing at her and holding her closer. Jamie would be annoyed if she didn’t feel the exact same way.

They shed crew members as they go and then it’s just Carl and Jamie—and Shirley, of course—by the time they get back to the suite. Edmund picks Dani up at the door and she laughs in surprise as he carries her to the couch, depositing her safely in her seat. It’s a great moment for the cameras, one that makes Shirley clap her hands together in excitement.

Dani’s eyes catch Jamie’s as Edmund kicks off his shoes by the table across the room. She grins, tilting her head against the back of the couch and gives a little wave. Jamie waves back, a little more subdued than Dani. She can feel Shirley watching the whole thing like a hovering parent. 

“We have an email from the experts,” Edmund says as he pads back over the couch in his socks, looking down at his phone. “Some questions to ask one another.”

Dani hums. “Yeah?” she asks, still looking at Jamie. “What kind of questions?” 

To the average viewer, it will just look like her eyes are fixed at some point in the distance. The wall or a painting or something else. Something trivial. Not another person. Another person who is set alight by the sudden attention—not just from Dani, but from Shirley and Carl, too, who have picked up on the strange tension that’s suddenly come to life in the room. There’s no good way to explain Dani’s behavior, so Jamie is mostly praying beneath her breath that she won’t have to. 

Edmund sits down on the couch and the force of it bounces Dani a little, effectively breaking the spell. She draws her legs up onto the cushion and swings her head around to look at him as he crosses one leg over the other like a chicken wing, still reading the email. 

“Just to get to know each other, I think,” he says. 

Dani nods, very serious all of a sudden. “Okay. Hit me.”

Edmund laughs, but nods, reading out the first question: “What’s your favorite quality in yourself?”

This seems to catch Dani off guard, but it’s not clear if it’s because of the question or because of the potential answer. She sits there, drooped and falling falling

( _a slip of wet paint down the wall_ )

for a long minute, just thinking. Or else: hesitating. 

Recently, these have both begun to look the same.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles eventually. 

Edmund mimics her posture, leaning his own head against the back of the sofa so they can look at one another properly. It’s a sweet gesture, this kind, childlike mimicry, but it doesn’t land the right way. Dani’s bottom lip is drawn between her teeth and she’s frowning so spectacularly that it’s hard to remember what she looks like when she smiles.

“There has to be something,” Edmund tells her. “You’re pretty great.”

“Yeah,” Dani says absently.

“You’re funny, you’re smart, you’re beautiful…” He trails off, list unfinished, and that’s entirely fair because he hasn’t known Dani very long. They’re still getting to know one another. But Jamie can’t help but think of all those things going left unsaid:

The way she scrunches her nose up when she laughs. How she leans in when she’s really listening, like she’s trying to get as close as possible—all shoulders and pouty lips. The dorky way she dances to club music when she’s a little drunk. The anal and completely counterintuitive way she keeps her books and DVD’s ordered in her house—by color; by top-billed actor. That day outside the school she works at when she’d been cornered by the show’s crew; that expression that betrayed her wonder at there being anyone in the world who could end up with her.

But it’s not her question to answer and it’s not Edmund’s either.

It’s Dani’s.

“Um…” She chews on her lip for another moment. “I guess...I’d like to think I’m pretty perseverant.” She says it in the form of a question, the most important word tilting up at the end. A beat of silence and then, with more conviction: “When I set my mind on doing something, I see it through. That kind of thing.”

Edmund nods encouragingly. For him and their marriage, this is good news. Reassurance that Dani is in it for the long haul. Not planning on going anywhere. Jamie adjusts her grip on the boom mic, her hands a little clammy now, muscles quaking.

“That’s a good one,” Edmund tells her. 

Dani smiles, a little sadly. Pokes his leg with her foot. “What about you?”

It’s Edmund’s turn to think for a moment, but his answer does not take nearly as long as Dani’s had. “I’d like to say I’m a good friend. I mean...I try to always be there for the people I care about.”

With anyone else, Jamie would think this was a line—just something he’s saying to make himself seem dependable. To get Dani on his side, especially because she’s been so wary about romantic intimacy. But there doesn’t appear to be anything fraudulent in his voice. 

“Good to know,” Dani says and Edmund hands her his phone so she can read the next question. “What’s one thing you think is absolutely unforgivable?” The look she fixes him with is nothing short of anticipatory. A little fearful, perhaps.

“I guess if you murdered someone, I’d wanna have a talk about that,” Edmund jokes, and Dani laughs, clearly glad for the change in tone. “But if they deserved it, I’d probably just help you get rid of the body.” They laugh again. 

Dani unfolds herself a little, more open now than she was before. She sits up and lets her knees press into Edmund’s thigh. “How chivalrous,” she says.

When the moment has wound down a little, he finally says, “No, but..abuse of any kind, of course. And I guess just...a lack of communication? I feel like there are only a few things that can’t be talked out, really.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Dani says. “One-hundred percent.”

She never gives her own answer, but Edmund doesn’t seem to notice.

_______

Jamie scrubs her skin raw in the bathroom that night, rubbing a stiff, white washcloth against her arm until almost all of the inked tally marks are gone. She doesn’t look in the mirror. She doesn’t think about the shape of Dani on that couch or the weight of her stare. 

And, if she does, it only makes her scrub harder.

_______

This is the next afternoon at the edge of a dock: Edmund standing on the wooden slats with his hand outstretched to Dani, who is standing with her feet firmly planted on the stone walkway. Their lunch tour of the island is set to begin within the next ten minutes and the crew is already inside, miking the area on the deck where they’ll be seated and setting up camera angles. Jamie is fiddling with her sound bag, resting in the open trunk of the rented van, and pretending not to watch as Edmund attempts to coax Dani into some kind of sense of security.

“I know it’s silly,” Dani is saying. “I just...need a minute.” 

“I understand,” Edmund tells her. He drops his hand and steps off the dock so he can stand before her. Rests his hands on her shoulders, thumbing the edges of her t-shirt sleeves in an effort to comfort her. “It’s not a problem.”

“It’s like...once we’re on the boat, I’m fine, but...I’m bad at this part.”

“It’s really okay.”

“I don’t want to ruin our lunch.”

“You’re not going to ruin anything. We’ll be okay.”

He doesn’t explain _how_ , but maybe he doesn’t really need to. Maybe it wouldn’t matter anyway because Dani wouldn’t believe him. He really is trying, that much is evident. If this were a normal scenario and they were on their honeymoon on their own—without a television show dictating how they spend their time—the easiest and most painless thing to do would be to cancel the tour entirely. At least, that’s what Jamie would do if it were her. 

But then, she thinks, she wouldn’t bring her new and terrified-of-the-ocean wife on a tropical vacation anyway. That being said—

Well. She needs to stop thinking that sort of thing.

The sound of her slamming the trunk shut grabs Edmund’s attention and he glances over Dani’s shoulder to watch Jamie as she approaches. Gives her a little smile that Jamie forgets to return. 

Shirley steps onto the dock from the boat. “Hey, guys,” she calls over. “I’d love to get everything set and ready to go.”

This only makes Dani’s posture stiffen all the more. Edmund turns and gives Shirley a wave, saying, “Be right there,” so that she’ll go back to wherever she’d been before she called for them. He looks back at Dani once she’s gone. “I’ll go for now. You just take a minute and meet me up there?”

Dani nods and lets him kiss her cheek. Says, “Okay,” and then watches him go and board the boat without her. Jamie watches her for a long moment and then approaches slowly. Tiredly. Trying to look as casual as possible.

“I hate ’em too, you know,” she says, soft and low to keep from spooking the other woman. 

Dani turns and looks at her, the corner of her mouth tilting a little when their eyes meet. “What’s that?” she asks.

Jamie jerks her head towards the boat. “Boats. Water. Waves. The lot.”

“Do you really?”

“Sure,” Jamie says. “I’ve seen _Titanic._ _Poseidon_. _Sharknado_. I know what the worst case scenario looks like.”

Dani laughs, a delighted sound. “Sharknado, huh?” 

“Sure.”

“That would be pretty terrifying.”

“I reckon you’re right.”

“What are the odds of a tornado appearing in the middle of the ocean and sucking sharks into itself while we’re on this tour?” Dani asks, eyes sparkling like the surface of the water in the sunlight.

Jamie lets herself be dazzled. “I’d say...One in four.”

Dani’s eyes bug a little. “One in _four_.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s not _good_!”

Now it’s Jamie’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, those are terrible odds, huh?” she says. “But I’m probably wrong. I am about most things, I think.”

It’s meant to be light-hearted, but it drops the tone down an elevator shaft when she says it. Shifts the mood right off the edge of the earth. Dani’s smile drips away into something pained. Something apologetic. Jamie can’t look at it for very long. Lets herself stare up at the boat’s mast, white and pure and stretching up into the sky.

“Maybe not everything,” Dani tells her, voice pitched a whisper and it’s clear they’re talking about something completely different now.

Hope, like poison, spreads through Jamie’s veins in an instant. “Yeah?” she lets herself ask and Dani doesn’t break eye contact for a moment.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

If time could stretch on forever and ever—unfurl like a rug to stretch across land and sea and lead them into the horizon—Jamie is certain they would spend almost all of it looking at one another like this, letting their words be carried away in the gentle, oceanic breeze. But time does _not_ go on forever and all things end; Shirley comes to the edge of the deck again and waves her hand in a come-hither motion at one or both of them. The moment shatters into thousands of tiny splinters, rattling like nails through the silence of Jamie’s mind as they fall to the ground beneath their feet.

At once, Dani’s fear has returned, evident in the hold of her shoulders and the set of her mouth. Jamie does something she really shouldn’t: she reaches out and grabs Dani’s hand in her own, pulling very gently as she takes a step forward.

“You can do this,” she tells her and Dani’s gaze drops sharp and heavy stones into the pit of Jamie’s stomach. “Come on. If we capsize, I’ll freeze to death so you can float on the door or whatever.”

“Was it a door?” Dani asks and Jamie rolls her eyes.

“I just said I’d freeze to death for ya’ and _that’s_ your question?”

“You’re right,” Dani laughs. “How terribly chivalrous of you.”

Jamie gives her a little bow that’s really just her tipping her head forward. She squeezes Dani’s fingers in her own and tugs again. “Thank you, thank you,” she says.

They don’t drop hands until they’re on the boat and Dani sits facing Jamie—hovering behind the cameras—all through lunch.

_______

More photos from Owen that night. Him and Hannah with the striking sun glinting behind them. Him flexing in front of a worn statue of an Adonis. Hannah standing at the edge of the ocean in a swimsuit and silk robe, the wind catching the ends of it and framing her like a piece of art. 

_How’s your honeymoon going_? he asks, the abrupt happiness of having a partner keeping him on his cheeky best.

 _great,_ she types back, _best i’ve ever had._

She sends him a picture of herself at the hotel bar, posing with a glass of wine in her hand; the message reads, _celebrating five happy years together._

Owen sends her back a GIF of Judge Judy rolling her eyes.

_______

The next morning greets her with a mild hangover and two text messages from an unknown number. She has the morning off, given that all of the couples are meant to be doing activities together for a few hours and someone from another crew is able to do her job. Her plan had been to spend it sleeping or moping or both, but her phone says it’s already ten o’clock and the messages surprise her into sitting up so quickly her head aches all the more.

 _Hey! Carl said you’re off this morning, but I’ve found myself quite suddenly with nothing to do and thought I’d see what you’re up to,_ the first one reads, but it’s the second one that gets her.

The one that reads: _This is Dani, by the way_.

Followed by a smiling emoji.

Jamie tries to wrack her tired brain, tries to remember if her and Dani ever exchanged phone numbers, but she comes up blank. According to the time-stamp, the texts were only sent about ten minutes before. It was probably the buzzing of the phone on the nightstand that woke her up.

 _Nothing to do_.

She reads that part again and again, but comes no closer to deciphering what is meant by that. There isn’t a part of that which makes sense given what Jamie knows to be the itinerary of the day. There should be plenty of things keeping Dani from sending her ominous text messages, but apparently there isn’t.

Instead of anything resembling a greeting, she ends up typing, _aren’t you with the others?_ and sends it before she can second guess herself. The read receipt appears beneath it immediately, giving away the fact that Dani was either checking to see if she responded at that exact moment or that she was simply sitting wherever she is with the message stream open.

_Ah, yes. I can explain once you meet me! Feel like an early lunch?_

_very early,_ Jamie types, then deletes it. Stares at Dani’s last message for a long time. Eventually types, _name the place._

_______

The place, Franco’s Cafe, has—like almost everywhere else on the island—a breathtaking view of the village and the coastline. Dani is already half-a-mimosa deep by the time Jamie arrives, hair still a little damp from the shower and already frizzing a bit in the humidity. Her face lights up like an oil lamp in the shadows when she sees Jamie coming towards her.

“Hey!” she says. “Good morning!”

“Morning,” Jamie mumbles, because it’s a mumbling kind of day. The base of her skull is still throbbing with every other breath and Dani is too beautiful to look at from most angles, but especially from this one. It strikes her that, given how few others are seated on the balcony of the cafe, this is the closest they’ve been to alone since the bathroom on Dani’s wedding night.

“You look terrible,” Dani comments, her voice a piteous thing.

Jamie scoffs. “Thanks a lot.”

“No!” Dani rushes to say, shaking her head emphatically. “ _No_ , I mean...You still look like— You’re gorgeous like always, but—” She stops there like she really can’t believe she just said that, which is fine because Jamie isn’t breathing anymore. They stare at one another for an unblinking moment before Dani finds it within herself to continue. “You just look really tired. Which, like! I bet this is exhausting and not a vacation at all and—”

“Poppins,” Jamie cuts in, raising a hand. “It’s okay.” Her throat is so dry that she’s not actually sure how she manages the words. “I’m actually a little hungover.”

Dani giggles. Honest-to-god _giggles_. “Ah,” she says. “It’s becoming clear to me now.”

“Oh, shove off,” Jamie tells her, then nods at her mimosa. “What’s a girl gotta do to get one of those?”

“Wow, you really _are_ hungover,” Dani drawls. She reaches over and grabs a pitcher full of the drink from the side of the table, holding it up to fill the empty glass on Jamie’s side. “This has been sitting here the whole time.”

“Maybe I’m just unobservant.” 

“Maybe.”

Jamie holds the glass up at Dani for a second and then takes a long drink from it, letting the sweet, syrupy taste of it thicken against her tongue and burst against her taste buds as it slides down her throat. It tastes better in the sun. On vacation. Sitting across from a beautiful woman. When she lowers her glass, Dani is watching her, lip caught between her teeth like she’s thinking something she knows she can’t share.

“Better?” she asks and Jamie nods.

“Much.” She looks over the edge of the balcony they’re next to for a moment. Tries to fill the black of each blink with someone other than Dani’s sun-bright smile. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking a kayak tour right now?” 

She has to ask; has to know. Wants to bask in the blessing of Dani’s unexpected attention and presence, but needs to know how they got here. Needs to know how much she’s allowed to enjoy this.

Dani takes a swig of her own drink and then winces. “Yeah, I am, but...I had a panic attack before I could even get in the kayak,” she confesses. “And I feel like an idiot, but I...I just couldn’t do it.”

“Being afraid of something doesn’t make you an idiot,” Jamie tells her, bumping their feet together beneath the table. Dani’s foot presses back against her own, insistent and reassuring. “I’m afraid of just about everything.”

“You?” Dani asks. “Never.”

“Sure I am. Snakes, big bugs, werewolves, the dark, pretty girls. You name it.”

Dani looks like she wants to ask a follow-up question, but she doesn’t. She just smiles, seeing right through Jamie’s easy comfort. “Sharknados,” she adds and Jamie laughs.

“Right. How could I forget?” 

Dani takes another sip of her mimosa. “Pretty girls, huh?” she prods, dipping her toes in dangerous waters. “How’s that work?”

And she shouldn’t, really, but Jamie plays along anyway. “It doesn’t, really,” she jokes. “At least not so far.”

Dani quirks an eyebrow. “I find that kind of hard to believe.”

Jamie’s heart patters against her rib cage like rain on a tin roof. “Why’s that?”

“You just…” Dani begins, struggling with the words. “You seem like a catch to me. That’s all.”

Okay. Okay then.

“That why you mysteriously acquired my phone number and asked me to lunch?” 

A lovely sound: Dani’s laughter. “Carl gave it to me,” she explains, but doesn’t deny Jamie’s half-joking accusation.

“Right. Good ol’ Carl.”

“Exactly.”

A waiter interrupts them then, bringing over plates of food that Dani must have ordered before Jamie arrived. She’s a good guesser, Jamie decides. Given the choice, she thinks she would have ordered the exact same thing. Once the waiter is gone, Jamie pretends to focus on cutting up her eggs with her fork so she won’t give herself away. “So, is Edmund with the others, or…?”

Dani nods. “Yeah, he...He said he’d stay back with me but I know he was really looking forward to it, so I made him go.”

Jamie nods around a bite of her food. “Meet the others, then?”

“Well, I met the girls already. But the guys seem nice.”

“Yeah?” Jamie asks, thinking of Owen, as happy and grinning as he has been in all the photos he’s sent her so far. 

“Mhm,” Dani hums, chewing slowly. “Peter is...tall. He and Rebecca were all over each other.”

Jamie makes a face. “Gross.”

Dani laughs. “Yeah, it wasn’t great. Not looking forward to dealing with that over lunch once they get back.” 

“Right, lunch.” A nod at Dani’s food. “You gonna be hungry again by then?”

A shake of her head. Another laugh. “I’m always hungry,” she says. “That’s my secret.”

“Not much of a secret.”

“I guess not.”

Silence then. The two of them eating and glancing at one another in the tender breeze from the ocean. Dani’s hair falling around her face and shoulders with angelic grace. If Jamie squints, she can imagine another life, another wedding. Another honeymoon. A suite of their own and tangled sheets beneath their tangled limbs. Tripping over Dani’s shoes on her way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. A kiss pressed to the rise of Dani’s cheekbones in the early morning sunlight. 

There are things she wants to say. So many of them that it feels like they are tangled into a knot in her throat. But something about this moment seems sacred. Golden. It won’t last forever anyway. No use in slicing it into shreds of nothing early.

_______

The episode as it airs. Final cut. The other couples and Edmund on their kayak tour. Laughing and joking. Asking Edmund about Dani. About what they’ve done. Talking about their own experiences. Peter and Rebecca lean over to try and share a kiss as they go, but laugh instead when their kayaks tip back and forth.

Edmund watching them. Edmund’s voice over talking about intimacy. About the slow pace he and Dani are going because he wants her to be comfortable. Wishes for at least a little more than what Dani is giving.

Dani meets them on the beach. Edmund reaches out and takes her hand as they walk to the private section with tables beneath umbrellas where their lunch is waiting. She takes it after only a second’s hesitation. 

“How was it?” Dani asks as they sit around the table. Everyone else has a plate of food in front of them, save her.

“It was a lot of fun!” Rebecca chirps, leaning against Peter’s arm as she speaks. “Almost drowned once or twice, but it was worth it.” Peter smiles at her. Leans down to kiss her.

A shot of Edmund watching them wistfully. 

Owen and Dani take to one another immediately, some unknown common thread tying them together. He asks about her life back in London. Talks about his own. Mentions Jamie in the simplest of terms, without revealing that she works on the show. Dani, who knows of their friendship already, nods at once and Owen seems to gather this understanding they share. Soon they are swapping stories like old friends.

Edmund cuts in some time later, his arm draped across the back of Dani’s chair even as she sits a good ways from him. The stretch seems strange and uncomfortable. The other couples are much closer to one another. 

“Do you want something to eat?” he asks, and Dani gives him a kind smile. Shakes her head.

“I’m not hungry,” she says, but the real reason she’s not eating is because she already did. Earlier. Alone with someone who is not her husband. A friend. But no one will know this but her. She goes back to talking with Owen and Hannah both, leaving Edmund largely ignored at her side.

His posture slumps. He frowns. The tension will be evident to every single viewer, even if it’s not obvious to Dani.

_______

Later, the tension finally breaks and Jamie is standing in the middle of the hotel suite, holding the boom mic, when it happens. Edmund spent the rest of the day cold and distant, throwing out touches towards Dani like they were tests he expected her to fail. A hand on her shoulder or an arm; one on her waist; grabbing for her hand. Anything and everything. Whatever he could get away with.

And it wasn’t like Dani didn’t respond to them. Wasn’t like she didn’t hold Edmund’s hand in her own when it was offered. Wasn’t that she didn’t lean into him when he pulled her closer. In fact, it’s not really clear _what_ it is, until he finally, finally says:

“Do you even _want_ to kiss me?”

Gone is the man from every other encounter—the sweet understanding that accompanied Dani’s confession of needing to be comfortable; that friendly deal struck during their first few minutes spent getting to know one another. In his stead is someone else entirely; a petulant child wanting what he hasn’t been given; standing in the middle of the room in board shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops. Frizzed-out curls and frustrated eyes.

Dani looks up from her phone, where she’d been reading another email from the experts with even more questions, and blinks at him. “What?” she asks.

Edmund sighs. Scrubs a hand across his face. “I just mean…I know you want to get to know each other, Dani, but we’ve...been _doing_ that and today when we were with the others—”

“So this is about the others,” Dani says, her voice cracked with emotion.

“No,” Edmund says. “I mean, _yes_ , I just...I just feel like I’m always the one who initiates things and— Sometimes I feel like you don’t even want me to touch you, so I…”

It’s been building to a crescendo since the wedding ceremony, that much is clear. Since that misdirected kiss; Dani turning her head so he would miss her lips at the last second. Edmund has been swallowing down words that he’s wanted to say for days now and the effort of releasing them has him shaking. Has him sounding whiny. Childish. Immature.

Dani is struck and still in her seat on the sofa. She stares up at him like she’s certain she’s seeing him incorrectly. Dreaming, perhaps. “Eddie,” she says very softly, “it’s not that I don’t like touching you. I’m just—”

“Uncomfortable,” Edmund finishes for her. “I get it. I’m just...Seeing everyone else and how much further along they are already made me feel like we’re not making any progress. Right now, we’re friends and—”

“Yes. We’re _friends_. We’re still getting to know each other,” Dani says.

“I know that. I _know_ that, but we’re _married_ , Dani. We’re not just friends. I’m your husband and I’m just a little bit frustrated—”

Dani shows her teeth just a little. “Clearly.”

“—because, sometimes, it doesn’t feel like we’re on the same page.”

“Yeah,” Dani says. “I think I agree with you there.”

A stalemate has been reached; Edmund will no longer meet her eyes. He shrinks in on himself. Jamie wants to tell Carl to turn the camera off. Wants to tell Shirley that this shouldn’t be for anyone else’s eyes. But that’s not the job, not the gig. She’s filmed far worse fights between couples than just this.

It’s Dani who breaks the silence, shaking her head and looking away from Edmund. “I’m going to get some air,” she says, and Edmund knows better than to protest when she brushes past him on her way out the door.

_______

There is no bad guy. That’s the problem. No one to blame when everyone plays a part in it. Jamie has known this the entire time, but the lesson is all the sharper as soon as the door closes behind Dani. 

Shirley gives a gesture to both her and Carl and filming stops at once. She steps in to intervene with Edmund, to get him in touch with Theo because that’s their only job when this sort of thing happens. It’s not to go chasing after the other half of the couple when they storm off. But Jamie’s never really been good at following the rules. 

“I’m gonna go for a smoke,” she lies easily, and only Carl hears her, but it doesn’t matter because she’s already going, going, gone.

_______

Longing, that starving wild animal that impedes her every step, leads Jamie out to the back of the hotel, to the pool, like it knows just where Dani will be. It finds Dani standing at the edge of the railing overlooking the ocean, leaned forward and slumped—bent-backed beneath the weight of the whole thing. All of it. And doesn’t Jamie know the feeling?

“Hey,” she says as she approaches, and Dani doesn’t even jump at the sound of her voice. She just looks up and meets her eyes. Like she’d been waiting. Expecting her. “Sorry to...If you want me to leave, then I—”

“No,” Dani says quickly, shaking her head. “No, stay. Please.”

Jamie does. She comes to a halt directly beside Dani and rests her own elbows on the railing, leaning down against them. She looks out over the harsh darkness that’s overtaken the village surrounding them, below them. Music from the hotel bar drifts out onto the veranda, making its lazy way to them. Just faint music from the bar and the empty twitter of bugs in the grass, in the leaves. Days spent boiling in the sun, sweat clinging to clothes and skin, feel so far away in the afterglow of the setting sun. The air is still warm, but it's comfortable now in the delicate, shimmering night.

Magic clinging to Jamie’s fingertips, to the nape of her neck. Buzzing in the space between here and Dani, all those places where they aren’t touching. Her breath is filled with ash from a fire that’s only just been started and she knows she should, but she can’t bring herself to resent its source. Not with Dani’s shoulder brushing her own.

“What am I doing, Jamie?” Dani asks, emotion simmering against the edges of her voice. “Am I kidding myself?”

Jamie feels like collapsing, like sinking into the ground beneath her feet. She doesn’t, but she is glad for the way she’s leaned over. Knows from the burn at her eyes, in her head, that she’s about to cry. Bites it back because that can’t happen. Almost does.

She takes a careful breath and it shakes in her lungs. Shakes her head. Says, “I don’t know, Dani,” without looking at her. “Maybe we both are.”

When she manages eye contact, Dani looks so young and bright and lovely that Jamie is certain she could die from it. Already has, perhaps. Whatever Jamie is expecting her to say, it isn’t: “Do you know why I wanted to get married at first sight?” 

She shakes her head. Hasn’t the strength for anything more.

“Because I didn’t know what else to do.”

Jamie straightens her posture, shoving her hands into her pockets. She has to physically keep herself from touching Dani anyway that she can. “What does that mean?”

Something flashes in Dani’s eyes, but she doesn’t drop Jamie’s gaze. “I’ve been alone for as long as I can remember,” she says quietly. “I...for a long time, I thought there was something wrong with me. That I was broken. And my mother...I love her so much, and I know she just wants what’s best for me, but...they asked me that question, you know? About why I wanted to do this in the first place and I realized that I...I don’t think I _did_ . And Edmund doesn’t deserve that. He deserves someone who _isn’t_ broken and I just really wish that…”

She trails off, unable to finish, arms folded across her middle. 

What Jamie wants to say: _run away with me, take my hand and we’ll just run and I could love you forever I think and isn’t that scary, isn’t that the scariest thing in the world, but please don’t_ —

What she says: “You’re not broken, Dani.”

“How do you know?” Dani asks. She’s crying now, so quiet it’s terrifying. Makes the ground shake. The heavens split open and splinter everything—Jamie’s careful, careful control—apart just like that.

Jamie reaches up and touches Dani’s face, swiping a tear away with the pad of her thumb. “Just...trust me on this one,” she says. She half-expects Dani to pull away, but she doesn’t. She just reaches up and catches Jamie’s hand, pressing it even further against her cheek. Her eyes close and Jamie can’t look away from her for even a moment as they just breathe there together, standing at the edge of a line they can’t cross. 

Dani’s eyes flutter back open, huge and starry and dark. They’re so close now that Jamie can feel her soft, shallow breathing against her lips and chin, see the tears welling in her eyes. This is dangerous. More than dangerous. This is _stupid_. Reckless. Foolish. Beyond all these things. 

_A mistake_ , whispers the only rational scrap of her mind left. But she can only barely hear it anyway and it doesn’t matter for more than a second because there’s a cool hand cupped around the back of her neck, sinking into her curls. Dani is leaning in and in, waiting for Jamie to pull away, to say _no_ or put a stop to this. But she can’t. Any protest she might be able to come up with has been emptied from her chest along with all of her air.

That last inch or so remains between them, just waiting to be breached, to be crossed. But—

“Dani,” Jamie whispers, their foreheads brushing together, “you have to meet me in the middle.” And she _does_. She has to or else it will mean something else entirely and she goes to say that, goes to explain it, but she doesn’t get the chance. Because Dani is pushing forward, bridging that gap, and it doesn’t matter anymore. Jamie pushes forward, too, and then they’re kissing and it’s—

Light. Careful. Different, somehow, than Jamie could have ever imagined. She leans into it, softly. Lets it linger for a moment, easy and slow, and then something else breaks and it’s different. Harder. Fiercer. Teeth and tongue and Dani tugging her closer by her hips, fingers digging in like claws; just as lost and desperate and feral as Jamie’s thumping heart as it bites the edge of her throat. Those hands move up, cupping Jamie's jaw on either side, guiding the kiss. Making Jamie dizzy, dizzy, _gone_. Heat in her stomach, in her lungs, running her hands up Dani’s arms—across the soft, pale skin she finds there—and pulling her nearer. Can’t imagine how she might have ever wanted anything else; how she could have held off this long.

It seems impossible now, having kept herself away from this beautiful and lightning-struck woman. The star-fevered press of her lips and the flick of her tongue. The heat of her body as it presses against Jamie’s own. If she holds her tight enough, kisses her hard enough, Jamie can imagine that this is another life, another world. One where she can have this where _they_ can have this; where it’s _their_ honeymoon and _their_ life together and—

“Dani, are you—”

Dani pushes a bit at Jamie's shoulders and pulls away so quickly that it nearly sends Jamie sprawling. She manages to catch herself at the last moment on the railing, the heat stolen from Dani’s body sapping out of her skin and clothes so rapidly she almost shivers. Dani manages to straighten herself up—her clothes and hair; wipe her lips with the back of her hand—just before Edmund steps out onto the veranda beside the pool. 

“I’m here,” she says, going towards him and leaving Jamie standing where she is. 

Edmund looks relieved to see her. Lets out a long sigh and moves forward, slowly. “Hey, I...I shouldn’t have—” He shakes his head, sighing again. “Can we...talk? I just...I want to apologize and I—”

“Yeah,” Dani says, too quickly, too suddenly. “Yeah, we can—”

As she goes to meet him by the door into the hotel, she glances over her shoulder at Jamie who is still standing there, smoke and fog and mirrors and a dozen other things she can’t make sense of. Jamie doesn’t look at her. She keeps her eyes fixed on the ground, relearning how to breathe and stand on her own.

It isn’t until she’s alone again that she remembers.

..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I've a feeling you may also share. Do you feel an undertone of discord and a sense of tension in the air?" ("Three Letters", She Loves Me)


	7. Move-Ins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. yikes. so sorry, guys. i got waaaaayyy in my head about this one. 
> 
> angst ahoy. i'm so sorry.
> 
> but i will give you the same reassurance i gave a buddy of mine: there will be less angst eventually! and sex! probably two sexes! just...not yet.
> 
> read on, loves.

Edmund says, “Thank you, by the way. For the other day.”

“For what?” asks Jamie.

She is standing just in front of him in the security line and Dani is somewhere ahead of them with Carl and Shirley for some reason. Not _some_ reason.

Jamie _knows_ the reason. She doesn’t think about it.

“I know you and Dani are friends,” says Edmund, sock-footed as they shuffle forward with their things slung onto the conveyor belt. “And...after that...argument we had...she told me you were talking it out with her when I came out there.”

“She told you that,” says Jamie, the words numbing the tip of her tongue just so.

“Yeah,” says Edmund. “So...thank you.”

Jamie doesn’t look at him. She says, “Yeah. Sure thing.”

_______

There’s a good chance this is all her fault. Statistically speaking.

Jamie has spent the time since she met Dani telling herself to keep her distance even as she was breaking her own promise. She’s had so many chances to back away. To think things over. To step away and let it be, but she hasn’t taken any of them. Just the opposite, really, and, yes, Dani met her in the middle and Dani kissed her back but—

They only found one another _because_ Dani wanted to marry a stranger and Jamie knows that she is a fool, carves it into the very heart of herself, because, really: how else was this supposed to go?

Like this, she thinks; just like _this_.

And the most tragic part of all is that Jamie knows she is a fool and yet she cannot pull herself out. Cannot tug herself away. Every time she closes her eyes, she remembers the way Dani’s breath fanned out across her cheek as she traced her tongue along Jamie’s bottom lip, and then she remembers Edmund’s voice and what if he _hadn’t_ called out for Dani, what if he’d seen them and—he didn’t, that’s the important part, but any relief Jamie feels at this makes her want to _weep_ because he might have. He could have.

Nearly did.

( _she’s never wanted to be this person; never never_ **_never_ ** _and yet here she is, oh here she is—_ )

Sky-flushed Danielle Clayton, with eyes like waterfalls and her humor, sharp to slice. She kisses like she’s been hungry all her life. Dug out the mud around Jamie’s stubborn heart with her clever fingers; made her laugh and smile and fall so briskly into vivid bewilderment and stunning attachment that it’s a wonder Jamie has survived at all. 

If that’s the word for it—Jamie isn’t certain it is. Her legs have been hobbled to keep her from running and each breath feels like the tearing of a curtain in a dark room. A curtain she could just reach out and touch, pull aside to let the light in, if she could only get her bearings but she can’t. Maybe she doesn’t want to; Dani held her face in her palms so petal-soft, gasped against Jamie’s covetous lips. 

The rest of the honeymoon passed by in a blur; Dani let Edmund kiss her at the top of a volcano after a long, sweaty hike. He cupped her cheek and pressed his lips to hers and Dani did not hesitate for one, blinking second. When it was over, Dani did not look Jamie’s way, so Jamie pretended she did. That there was something in her eyes like

( _I’m sorry I’m so sorry I want you too please please_ )

regret. There wasn’t. 

More kisses at dinner. Dani leaned into Edmund’s arms as they sat on the beach at sunset. Saying, _things are going well we’re getting along and a lot of him seems too good to be true_.

On the plane ride back to London, Dani sits by her husband the entire time while Jamie stares at the back of her head—what little she can see of it—and thinks

( _idiot idiot idiot you complete child you couldn’t even_ —)

of something else.

_______

The first time Jamie calls Trish, she’s chain-smoking on her balcony in the acid-cold of her first night back. It is late and Jamie stares down at the business card—slipped into her pocket during the reception—on the seat of her lap while it rings and rings. 

In the space between the fourth and fifth ring, Trish answers.

“Hello?” 

“Hey, um,” says Jamie, clearing her throat. “It’s...It’s Jamie. Sorry to bother you, I just...I, um...I wanted to know if that offer to talk was still up?”

There’s a brief pause, just long enough for a hitch of panic to settle sharp in her ribs, and then:

“Yeah, of course it is. You’re not a bother. Really,” says Trish and it’s so sincere that it catches Jamie off guard. There’s a sound on her end like she’s shutting a cabinet and Jamie imagines her standing in some blurry kitchen somewhere. “I actually was hoping you’d call. I saw Dani earlier—”

Jamie’s not prepared for that. She breathes, “Oh,” against the line and Trish pauses.

“Did something happen during the honeymoon?” is the next question. “She seemed...off. She wouldn’t answer any of my questions and just…”

Jamie hesitates. Takes a long pull of her cigarette and then smashes it out in the ashtray on the ground beside her feet, pondering the wisdom of telling the truth—and then it occurs to her that Trish can probably guess it anyway.

She says: “We...We kissed.”

Then: “And then Edmund showed up and she just...went with him. Like she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. And now everything is…”

There’s not a word for what it is. Not one that can capture the whole thing.

The odds that Trish was expecting her to say that are fairly slim, so Jamie gives her time to adjust beneath the weight of this information. There’s a rattling breath, some kind of sigh that seems beyond the point of understanding, before she says, “You...wait, okay. Hold on.”

Jamie nods. “Yeah.”

“You kissed.”

“Yes.”

“On her honeymoon.”

“Yeah.”

“Dani actually kissed you?”

And here’s the thing: “Yeah. She did.”

“Well, _shit_ ,” says Trish. “I was right.”

Jamie scrubs her face with the palm of her hand, leaning her elbows on her knees in a sort of trampled slump. “Yeah,” she says. “You were.”

“Did...Did Edmund see it or…?”

“No. I don’t...I’m pretty sure he didn’t. Dani...she kind of pushed me away before he could.”

Not much of a push, but it hurt all the same. That press against her shoulders as Dani reared back, leaving Jamie standing there like, like... _something._

Someone she doesn’t want to be.

“Wow. Okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Jamie...I am so sorry.”

It’s around then that Jamie realizes that she’s crying, a slip of a tear dripping off her cheek and painting a dark dot on Trish’s business card. She sits up a little and rubs beneath her eyes, trying to will them away. Feeling like an idiot. She sniffs, centering herself, and says, “What for?”

“This whole...situation,” answers Trish. “For everything. I feel partially to blame.”

Jamie can’t fathom that. “Why?”

“I’ve known about Dani for a while. She’s never said anything, but...I just wanted her to open up about it when she felt safe enough to. And then she signed up for this stupid show and she actually _went through_ with it.” Her voice cracks a little around some of the words, and guilt—different than what’s been growing heavy in her stomach for days; just as sharp—settles like a fog in her veins. “If I’d just... _talked_ to her about before all this, maybe—”

“No,” says Jamie, unwilling to let someone else take the fall for her own missteps. “S’not your fault.” She swipes at her eyes again. “S’nobody’s fault. Except mine, maybe. I don’t know.”

Twelve stories down, cars grumble their way through the streets. Shrouded in shadow, people pass by in tiny dark shapes, too small for the eye to make much sense of. It’s a cool night, the winder bitter against her exposed forearms, sleeves bunched around her elbows. The only light on in her flat is the lamp in the living room, so she, too, is bathed in darkness. A fitting thing for her to be, she thinks. 

Tomorrow, she’ll have to straighten her spine, roll her shoulders back, and face Dani again, but she is alone for now. Save for Trish’s breathing on the other line. She doesn’t want to be, thinks maybe it’s dangerous for her to be right now, but so it goes.

The solution for this comes in the way Trish clears her throat; how she says: “Hey...you feel like getting a drink?”

And, yeah. Jamie really does.

_______

The bar Trish decides on is more of a club than anything: bright neon lights in the darkness and bass pumping through the walls and the bar itself, vibrating up Jamie’s spine and making everything feel fuzzy and distant. The bustle and noise—the music and the sounds of people talking, people laughing, fills her head, evacuating her limbs of that heavy lead. It’s a little harder to breathe because it’s _warm,_ but she feels like her lungs can fully expand again. For now.

Trish must know that the last thing she needs is to be somewhere quiet, so they sit at the bar and order their drinks. When they arrive, Jamie cups hers in her hands, letting the clink of ice inside it numb her fingers to the bone. Trish’s shoulder brushes warm against hers, reassuring somehow, and it’s welcome, of course. Camaraderie in this unexpected form. 

She’d like to say that, but she doesn’t have the words for it.

Part of her wants to play along with the other people packed into the club. Wants to pretend that she’s okay and that the entire world—or maybe just the most important part of it—hasn’t been turned upside down, hasn’t sent her sliding into space, but there’s no truth to it.

“So,” says Trish, pitching her voice loud enough to be heard over the din, “are we talking it out or pretending it didn’t happen?”

Jamie takes a sip of her drink and shrugs, childlike, without looking at her. “I just...I don’t know what to do.”

“Yeah. I...I don’t know either, if that’s of any comfort.”

“It isn’t,” says Jamie, fixing Trish with a wry grin. “But thanks anyway.”

Trish gives her a loose salute. “What I’m here for.”

“When you...When you saw...Dani,” and she aches around her name, “was she...? I mean—” She stops to clear her throat. “Is she...okay?”

“Oh, honey.” Trish rubs Jamie’s shoulder for a moment. “She seemed pretty much how you seem.”

Well—

 _Good_ , Jamie thinks, and then sorrow at the thought floods her lungs. 

“Right,” she says. Nothing else to say.

“What happened exactly?” 

Jamie crosses her arms on the bartop and turns to look at her companion. “I...She and Edmund had this little...tiff over…” She doesn’t finish that. Not her place. Says, “And she went off, so I went and found her and she was just saying all this stuff about being broken an-and...not wanting to get married and it hurt, you know? Her saying that because she’s—”

Trish nods, giving her a sad smile.

“Because she’s _not_ broken, she’s...She’s one of the best people I’ve ever met. She’s so kind and thoughtful and... _smart._ And beautiful, I mean...It’s like I—”

“Tell me about it,” Trish says with a fond roll of her eyes.

Jamie sighs, closes her eyes for a moment. “And I didn’t know what to do...how to make her believe me and she was right there and then—”

“You kissed her,” Trish finishes, and Jamie nods in confirmation. “Okay. And then Edmund came out and she went with him.”

“Yeah,” Jamie says quietly. “But she kissed me back, Trish. I swear on it. She _kissed_ me and she...we were...she touched me like—” She sits upright quickly, reaching out with cold fingers to cup Trish’s face the way Dani had hers. Seeing it, the gesture, confirms it for her: it happened, it happened and Dani wanted it _too_.

She doesn’t realize she’s been holding Trish’s face for too long until Trish reaches up and gently coaxes her own release.

Jamie’s ear flash hot. “Sorry,” she mumbles.

“Don’t be,” says Trish. “Can’t remember the last time a hot girl grabbed me like that.”

She winks—possibly an effort to lighten the mood.

Jamie rolls her eyes.

“She wouldn’t even look at me the rest of the time we were there. It was like she... _couldn’t_ or something and…”

Saying all of this aloud makes it feel solid. Less like a dream. Her chest aches, the blood in her veins making her feel sluggish and numb. Tears prickle hot in her eyes for the second time that night and she tries to sniff them away, ducking her head to swipe at the first one to fall before she turns into _that_ girl.

The kind that cries over missed opportunities in a club of all places.

“I’m such an idiot,” she says. “This isn’t...She _married_ him. She chose him. I should have just...left it alone.” Another tear. She doesn’t even bother trying to hide it this time.

Trish is quiet, thinking. Then, “Look, I can’t...I can’t pretend to understand what you’re going through. Obviously, none of this is ideal. But I know Dani. She’s my best friend. And she’s...she doesn’t do things without thinking them out first. She just _doesn’t_. It’s almost annoying, actually. Everytime I try to get her to come out with me, she has to think it over, I mean—” She cuts herself off, needing to laugh a little. Shake her shoulders loose. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you. I was hoping she’d break before the wedding, but…”

“What do I do, Trish?”

Trish blinks at her. “I don’t know, Jamie.” She shakes her head and covers one of Jamie’s hands with her own on the bartop. “But...it’s eight weeks, right? The whole thing? And then they decide if they want to stay married or not?”

“I can’t...be that person,” Jamie says, cracked open like the mouth of a rumbling volcano. “I can’t just...wait around and hope that her marriage falls apart. That’s—”

“I’m not asking you to,” Trish cuts in. 

“Trish, I don’t—”

“What you need to ask _yourself_ , Jamie, is how much you want to be in Dani’s life. In any capacity, married or unmarried, with you or _not_.” She squeezes Jamie’s hand. “And then decide what you’re willing to go through to make it happen.”

Jamie stares at her. Breathes. And Trish is the only person who’s had the courage to say it, to make Jamie understand why it is she’s shaking like this. Because the heart of the issue isn’t that she’s torn between being wanted or left wanting, it’s _fear_ , fury at herself: how easy it would be to lose everything, to walk away from this; how much harder it is to _stay_.

No matter what else has come after, there is something in Dani that she cannot stand the thought of losing, letting go of. Some part of her that is already so tangled up in everything Jamie’s ever wanted that she can’t turn her back. Not yet.

And sitting in that club with Trish at her side, she thinks: I cannot run.

I have run before—so many times—and I have made myself into the person that is sitting here, the person who kissed Dani back, and if I run, she will not be able to come with me.

_______

Few things are more lovely than Danielle Clayton in the glinting morning light. Jamie is certain that she hasn’t yet come across any of them. She stands in Dani’s living room, stunned into reverence from the way Dani nods as Russ talks her through the shot. He’s one of the only producers that doesn’t send Dani into that flighty, panicked mode, something in the easy way he says things that makes the whole thing seem more accessible. Less overwhelming.

Horace is humming beneath his breath, messing with the grip on his mic and bobbing his head to his own quiet melody. “Alright, kid?” he gruffs, glancing at Jamie, who is fiddling with her sound pack.

“Yep,” she says. “Just dandy.”

“It’s early, so I’ll give you that one. But the next time I ask—”

Good ol’ Horace.

His fatherly warmth blesses Jamie’s torn chest with something cool and temporarily numbing.

She grins at him. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll get into it later, alright?”

He points a finger at her, a silent promise to hold her to that, and then turns his attention to Carl, who is almost done setting up the shot.

Soon, she will have to deal with more than what she already cannot handle. Edmund will be arriving, sun-bright and gleaming as he is reunited with his wife after a night apart. 

( _and won’t that be too much, far too much, for her to handle, won’t she—_ )

In all the distraction, Jamie hasn’t had time to notice that Russ has finished with Dani and sent her to get miked up, so she isn’t prepared when she looks up only to meet Dani’s eyes for the first time in days. There’s something in them that Jamie doesn’t want to decipher. She worries it might be guilt and looks away very quickly.

Neither of them says anything. Neither of them knows where to start.

When Jamie tries a greeting, all that comes out is an odd and feeble cough, more like a gasp or a sigh than anything else. Dani pretends not to hear it while Jamie grabs her mic pack and goes about getting it ready.

They’ve done this so many times in the past weeks that it’s practically choreographed by now. Dani knows when to turn so that Jamie can clip the pack to the back of her belt; knows to thread the wire through her cardigan to the front; knows to tilt her head back so that Jamie can clip the mic itself to her lapel. 

All of this, they do without speaking and, somehow, without touching. The most contact Jamie allows is when she lifts the cardigan enough to make the mic secure and then she’s taking such a large step back that she almost runs into the sofa, and that’s when it all shatters:

She stumbles a bit, tilts dangerously, and Dani’s hand rushes out like magic to wrap around her wrist, to steady her. The slide of their skin together catches Jamie’s breath by surprise, and that familiar ache descends like the sweet embrace of a familiar lover. Jamie manages to right herself, but it takes a long moment for Dani to release her and it’s not that Jamie is displeased with this—it’s that they are playing with an inferno. Daring it to spark and ignite and engulf this tentative, unspoken truce they have into a wildfire.

“Sorry,” says Dani, realizing her mistake. She finally lets Jamie go.

“S’alright,” says Jamie. “Thanks for—”

“You’re welcome.”

The new silence that settles is strange and thick. Suddenly, Jamie has no idea how to be with Dani now that they’re

( _ex-somethings; ex-everythings; ex-nothings_ )

so frightened of one another. All that she knows is that she cannot be the one to shatter this stalemate because she is not the one who built it. So she just stands there, damned beneath the pinning weight of Dani’s gaze without meeting it, and waits for a miracle.

It never comes.

What does come:

Dani shifting forward. Dani saying, “Jamie, I—” 

And Jamie stepping back. Jamie saying, “You don’t have to—”

But:

“No, I _need_ to—”

“Look, Poppins—”

“Will you just...look at me?” says Dani. “ _Please_?”

It’s easier than Jamie thought it would be, obeying her. Dani does not look any differently than she did the last time she saw her and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe Jamie’s been hoping her miracle could come in the form of Dani being any less beautiful than she has been this whole time, but no. Her wishes have a knack for staying un-granted.

“Okay,” says Jamie. “I’m looking. Now what?”

It comes out sharp. Unpleasant. 

Good, she thinks; take what small victories you have left.

Dani blinks, like she’s certain it could change something. Like she wants to make sure she is looking at the right person. She says, “I’m...I’m sorry, okay? Not for…” She shakes her head and Jamie glances at their surroundings, making sure that everyone else is too busy doing their jobs to notice the way the atmosphere is changing beneath this shift. “And I know we need to...talk about it, but…” She smiles, this sad and broken-winged thing that makes Jamie want to pull her in. “I miss you.”

The confession almost knocks Jamie off balance again. “Dani…” she begins, but never finishes.

“You’re...You’ve been my only friend here and I miss talking to you, and now everything is weird and loaded and...I know it’s my fault, but I needed you to know that.”

Jamie reaches out, but her hand never reaches its destination. She has some self-control left, after all. It drops, and she says, “Dani, I—” but then Russ cuts in.

Says, “Jamie, how we looking?” from the other side of the room and Jamie has no choice but to give him a weak thumbs-up. At once, the room is in motion, Russ calling for everyone to get ready, calling for Dani to come stand on her mark, and Dani turns, goes to leave, but then Jamie stops her. Makes her wait. Makes her turn back and meet her eyes again.

Not by touching her—no, she can’t quite manage that—but by saying, “I miss you, too.”

Dani’s eyes glint in the sunlight. She smiles, watery and softened. Something new clicks into place where Jamie’s heart used to be. Dani goes to her mark. Stands on it.

And the cameras start rolling.

_______

Dani standing in front of her living room’s bay window, the lovely fall morning drifting leaves behind her head like a halo that refuses to lie still. She is smiling and bathed in the soft fill light just outside the camera’s range. Not a shadow in sight as she says:

“Edmund is coming to see my place today for the first time. I think he’ll like it! It’s homey and...quiet. But I know it’s a longer commute for him, so...we’ll have to see.”

Cut, then, to Edmund knocking on the door, to Dani answering it and hugging him back. Letting him kiss her in greeting while she says, “So, this is my place.”

In the final cut, the tour will take only three minutes of screentime. In reality, the whole thing takes more than an hour. 

Edmund pokes through Dani’s fridge, peers at framed photos from childhood and others from times more recent. Recognizes her alma mater and bonds with her over how close they’d lived to one another back in the states.

“Guess it’s fate, huh?” Edmund will ask and Dani will laugh. She won’t correct him. She won’t even look like she wants to once the editors get their hands on the footage.

In the bedroom, Edmund flops back on Dani’s bed with his arms outstretched, waving her over until she comes. She lies down, turned on her side to face him and he says, “It’s great here. But the—”

“Commute,” Dani cuts in. “I know.”

A frown the editors won’t keep then. A serious look in her eyes.

And then:

“Let’s go check out your place.”

And off they go.

_______

Edmund’s flat is small and messy. Dani sits on his clumsily-made bed and takes it in. 

“It’s nice!” she chirps, but it’s forced and, God, she has absolutely no poker face.

Jamie adores her.

“Yeah, I know it’s small, but…” Edmund trails off, unable to finish. 

Russ gets a shot of them laughing on the bed together. Edmund explaining the stacked storage crates that he uses for kitchen counters because the tiny corner he calls his kitchen didn’t come with any. 

“So...I think between the size of my place—” says Edmund.

“And the commute from mine,” says Dani.

“We might need to look for a new place.”

What a pair they make; camera-born and dazzling together. Their wedding bands sparkle in the afternoon sunlight as it slants in through the plastic blinds across from the bed. 

Russ grins, thumbs-up and proud, as Edmund wraps an arm around Dani’s shoulders and pulls her into a side-hug. Dani doesn’t falter, so Jamie does it for her. Drops her eyes to the ground and stares at the scuff mark on the toe of her trainers. The sooty streak stretching out like a road that leads to 

( _nowhere, somewhere, anywhere else_ )

right where she’s standing.

_______

Jamie is thumbing through the menu of her fallback take-away restaurant on her phone when it buzzes in her hand. The banner notification at the top makes her freeze solid to the seat of her sofa:

[ **10:07** ] _I need to ask you something very important._

It’s from Dani. Dread jitters like rattling coins in her stomach as she considers her reply. Except, what is there to type except:

_okay._

And Dani has her read receipts on because one pops up below the message instantaneously and Dani starts typing again. Jamie bounces her leg up and down, tries to focus on the commercial playing on her TV. Failing that, she chews on her thumbnail and nearly bites herself when her phone buzzes again.

[ **10:09** ] _Do you lay out your socks before going to bed?_

For a very long second, Jamie can’t fathom the question at all. She lives in a perfect world where she is okay and everything is fine; Dani is lovely and unattached and she can have this. It’s a poisonous fantasy, and hard to shake herself free from, but it breathes smoke down her lungs at the slightest chance and she has yet to shake it.

( _wonders if she ever will_ )

 _what,_ she replies, forgetting the question mark, but Dani starts typing again anyway.

[ **10:10** ] _Eddie picks out his socks every night and lays them out_ , comes the answer, then:

[ **10:10** ] _Not his shirt._

[ **10:10** ] _Or his shoes._

 _his socks,_ Jamie finishes for her, _that’s a new one, not gonna lie._

She unfreezes at once, warming over at the thought of Dani laying in Edmund’s bed, texting her.

( _there is shame, too, yes, but_ —)

[ **10:12** ] _Don’t knock it till you try it. Apparently, it counts as a “life hack.”_

Jamie takes a few deep, easy breaths, staring at the message. Trying not to seem overeager, and then she remembers that, like Dani, she has her read receipts on, too.

_wow. duly noted. tell him i said thanks for the tip._

[ **10:14** ] _Anytime._

Clearly, Dani does not share Jamie’s concern at replying too quickly, because another message comes almost immediately after the first.

[ **10:15** ] _So, if you’re not setting out your socks, what are you up to_?

Here they are, standing on the edge of a schism, where the river splits into two canals. There are things that Jamie _should_ do ( _should say, should_ **_stop_ ** ) and there are things she should _not_ and she can feel every last thread of her resolve unraveling and she can’t just keep going like this is nothing.

The lamp flickers a few times and then comes back strong, startling Jamie out of her reverie. She shouldn’t acknowledge the message. She should text her back, clipped and detached, and when she sees Dani next, she’ll put an end to the entire thing. They can’t keep this up. Edmund deserves better. They _all_ do. 

This is what she tells herself.

But there are other things she tells herself, too.

( _you can’t have her; you_ **_won’t_ ** _have her; you don’t love her;_ **_don’t_ ** _love her_ )

And look at how accepting she’s been of them.

_______

What she doesn’t say: _we can’t do this, Dani; this is something we can’t have; it has to stop._

What she does: _realizing that i may have missed the window on food for today. how’s your sleepover going?_

_______

The next day. Brunch in a restaurant with a curved-corner booth where Edmund slings his arm around Dani as they talk about finances. Strange looks from other diners, despite the sign on the door informing them of the filming taking place. When Edmund goes to the restroom, Jamie’s phone buzzes in her pocket.

[ **11:57** ] _Hungry?_

Jamie glances up at Dani, who is innocently scrolling through her phone without looking up. No sign of anything strange, and nothing for the cameras to catch, even if they were rolling, which they aren’t. Not until Edmund returns.

She types, _what gave it away_? and presses send with a trembling thumb.

When she looks up, Dani is biting her lip as she stares at her phone, trying to hide her smile. 

[ **11:58** ] _You’ve been eyeing my pancakes for twenty minutes._

So, Jamie thinks; Dani’s been watching her. She doesn’t allow herself to herself to consider whether or not this means something

( _she already knows it does_ )

and answers: _if you’d just eat them, this wouldn’t be a problem._

[ **12:00** ] _I’m full!_

Jamie scoffs. Shakes her head. _rub it in why don’t you_ , she types back.

A giggle then. So soft and surprised that Jamie isn’t sure anyone else has even heard it. Dani is holding her phone with both hands, something delighted dancing in the shine of her blue eyes. Her thumbs tap on her screen for a couple of seconds, and then Jamie watches as she deletes whatever it is she’s written. On her screen, the bubbling ellipses on Dani’s end of the message fall away. 

They reappear a moment later, but then Edmund is coming back to the booth and swinging himself beside Dani, catching her off guard and making her tuck her phone away quickly. Guiltily—which Jamie does not let herself consider—and her answer never comes.

_______

After brunch. Outside the restaurant. Packing things up.

Someone taps Jamie on the shoulder and, when she turns, she’s completely unsurprised to find Dani watching her with a nervous smile playing on her lips. She’s standing closely enough—the day is _breezy_ enough—that a light hint of her perfume brushes across Jamie’s face in a cool caress, and she almost lets her head get away from her.

Before she can, she manages to say, “Hey,” and, “Alright?”

Dani nods, biting that lip again. A nervous tick that’s so endearing, Jamie has to glance away. “Here,” she says, and then she’s holding out a cardboard take-away box. “I’m sorry they’re cold.”

Jamie takes the box and opens it to find those two, untouched pancakes inside with a small, unopened cup of syrup in the corner. “Oh,” she says. “Dani, you—”

“Whoops.” Dani fumbles something from the bag she has slung across her body. She pulls out a plastic pack of silverware and hands them over next, fingertips brushing the backs of Jamie’s fingers in the pass off. “Might want these.”

“You didn’t have to...do this,” says Jamie, unsure of what else there is to say.

There’s a pause where Dani just looks at her, a dozen emotions Jamie can’t keep up with dancing across her delicate features. “You don’t like people trying to take care of you,” she says, not a question. A statement of fact.

Jamie blinks. “I mean—”

“It’s okay,” says Dani, like it really is. She looks amused now. Endeared, even. “I’ll keep trying anyway.” She reaches out and touches Jamie’s arm lightly, right beneath where the fabric of her flannel is bunched above her elbow, and it’s short-lived, but the amount of time it lingers is not the issue here.

The issue is that it happens at all.

There are flats for her and Edmund to go see and other people surrounding them, so Dani goes, then, releasing Jamie’s arm to do so. She goes to join her husband by the crew van they’re taking to the first place, and Jamie stays where she is, watching her go. She has done this so many times before, she has lost count.

She tells herself that it’s nothing because it has to be. But it’s more than that.

She knows it. Dani knows it.

And over by the entrance to the restaurant, caught in a conversation with Russ, Shirley watches the whole thing and knows too.

_______

The rest of the day is a blur. Jamie eats on the ride to the first flat and spills syrup on the knee of her jeans. Spends the entire tour of the place swiping at it intermittently with a napkin, damp with a light pour from her water bottle. Doesn’t have much luck.

The first place doesn’t have parking. Edmund says it doesn’t matter. Dani says it does.

They mark that one off the list.

The next place is a little too cramped. Edmund, used to his tiny studio, says it’s perfect. Dani, chafing against everything she’s chosen, says otherwise.

No compromise can be reached, so it gets crossed out, too.

At the last place—fully furnished—Dani looks out across the city from the living room window with a serious expression on her face. When Edmund joins her, touching her waist as he arrives, she jumps a little out of his touch and fixes her expression into something much calmer in the same breath.

Jamie stands in the kitchen and watches the whole thing. Lets Horace boom it because she can’t bear to be any closer than she already has been. Knows she’s pushing her luck. Knows Dani is pushing it for her. Feels each breath drag across her lungs like the raking of some rough beast’s claws, leaving her raw and torn.

“What do you think?” Edmund asks, his voice pitched low like he’s talking to a child. To a stray animal. To someone he’s worried might try and bolt.

Dani frowns out at the cityscape. “It’s nice,” she says, not like she’s lying, but like she doesn’t want to be telling the truth. 

“Once more with feeling,” Edmund jokes and Dani laughs, as startled by this moment of true companionship as Jamie, standing across the room, is. 

“Sorry,” she says. “It’s just...sinking in that we’re married. That we’re moving in with each other.”

Her voice is strained. Elevated. Held aloft by some unspoken desire to keep the moment as steady as possible.

Edmund doesn’t notice. He squeezes her shoulders with his arm and says, “It’s not too late to run,” with his most charming smile on display.

And, reflected there in Dani’s wide eyes, is the truth: _yes; yes it is._

Her hesitation makes Shirley shift her weight anxiously where she’s standing by the fridge. When Jamie glances at her, she catches the other woman seemingly looking away from her, as if she’d been watching her only when Jamie hadn’t been paying attention. 

She doesn’t let herself overthink it. Shirley has a tendency to look too critically at people she shares a payroll in. What little power she wields over the crew has a potent influence over her superiority complex.

“I’m good here, I think,” says Dani, somewhat unconvincingly.

“Good,” says Edmund, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “Me too.”

_______

Jamie dreams that she holds Dani in her arms in front of that window, opened to an orange-sky morning. They are each bedraggled and happy, looking out on the city like it is something they can conquer and, when she wakes, her lungs are filled with molten lead.

This feeling does not go away. Not when they’re filming Dani packing up her house. Not when they’re filming Edmund doing the same. 

It is there when they film the move-in; when Edmund scoops Dani into his arms again and carries her inside. It is there when Shirley makes them do it again, telling Dani to be more charmed by it without using those words. 

It’s there when Edmund tells the camera that he’s been hoping for more intimacy by now; when Dani says that she hopes living together will go smoothly. 

_I’ve never lived with a partner before_ , she confesses, and Jamie aches and aches to watch another important first be surrendered to Edmund.

It is there on her FaceTime call with Owen that night as he gives her the grand tour of his and Hannah’s new place. It is there as she smiles and loves him and watches the way he and Hannah orbit around one another, already so tangled in one another’s gravitational pull.

And when Dani texts her that evening with a simple picture of a pair of men’s socks, dotted with cartoon seahorses and resting on the top of a dresser, it is there, too. 

It is heavy and suffocating, blotting out the light before it can shine right through her, and Jamie knows it is too late, that the boat they’re in is already capsizing, but she keeps shoveling water out by the bucketful anyway.

_______

Trish calls. Drinks at the same club. A table to the side of the dance floor. They edge around a conversation because Dani is one of Trish’s closest friends and it is clear from every dip in Jamie’s troubled, sulky expression that Dani is part of the problem. It has been a week since that kiss in the dark, and Trish dodges the topic with practiced steps.

That’s fine. Just fine. Jamie doesn’t want to talk about it anyway. Doesn’t want to talk about Dani’s sweet, soft breath; the way her hands were steady on Jamie’s waist, on her cheeks, as she was crushed beneath the weight of everything she’d ever felt. Can’t think about Dani’s warmth or the shape of her in the doorway of her and Edmund’s shared flat.

By eleven o’clock, Jamie is very drunk. Her head lolls on her arms, crossed on the table, and she fixes Trish with a long look. “I hate this,” she says, and Trish takes a long sip from her frozen drink. Frowns at her.

“Yeesh,” Trish says. “And here I thought we were getting along so well.”

Jamie huffs, pushing at Trish’s shoulder. “No,” she says, sitting up slowly. “Being this person.”

“What person?” 

It’s clear from the way she says it that she’s humoring Jamie—perhaps even trying to keep the conversation from falling behind enemy lines. But it’s too late for that.

“The...The _other woman_ ,” Jamie hisses.

The phrase comes out funny. Something Jamie never thought she would label herself as. As if this is some sort of meeting-in-hotels _,_ my-husband-will-be-home-soon affair, rather than her simply falling in love with someone who is blatantly and fully off limits.

Trish frowns. “Oh, babe,” she sighs. “You _aren’t_.”

Jamie does not say: Edmund does not deserve to know the taste of bitter betrayal; how it slices and burns.

She says, “But she’s just so…” She shakes her head. “I can’t just walk away and I can’t _stay,_ and I don’t know what to do.”

An arm around her shoulders. She’s remembering the way Edmund’s eyes light up when Dani says something particularly witty or unexpected. How he touches Dani so gently, so carefully, in the same way Jamie would if she was ever given the chance. 

“Jamie—” Trish begins, but she doesn’t finish.

Jamie cuts her off, saying, “I don’t want to be someone’s _secret_. But I keep thinking...what if this is the only way I can have her? What if I can’t—”

“Hey—”

“I _hate_ being this person,” she finishes, flushed with shame and humiliation; anger and something else. 

Sorrow.

Trish wraps her into a hug, the angle strange and a little cramping, and Jamie does not worm away. She lets herself be comforted and shushed and rocked a little, not unlike a child, because there isn’t anything else to do. And so much of her life has been spent alone, but this is more than that. Different. 

It is not a choice this time.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket, shaking her out of Trish’s arms so she can grapple with it. The screen is fuzzy in her eyes, and her thumb is clumsy as it unlocked it, but she knows who it is before she even reads the message.

“Is that Dani?” Trish asks, still close enough that she can see the message. 

Jamie nods a little loosely, breathing harshly through her mouth as she tries to make sense of the words she’s reading.

[ **11:43** ] _Did not expect to spend the first night here on the couch, and yet…_

Oh. 

_what happened?_ Jamie sends, her mind too foggy to say anything else.

Those dreaded bubbles appear, and then:

[ **11:44** ] _He snores. Like...really bad. Haven’t gotten used to it yet._

 _Yet_ , Jamie thinks.

 _Never_ , Jamie hopes.

And the guilt that follows this thought makes her feel sick.

“Do you…” says Trish, and she’s frowning magnificently when Jamie looks back up at her. “Do you guys talk often? Like this?”

“Sometimes,” says Jamie.

“Oh.”

“What?”

Her phone buzzes again: [ **11:45** ] _You don’t snore, do you?_

Jamie isn’t certain if she’s dreaming or not. She considers calling Dani out on it—typing _Poppins, you flirt_ , just to see what happens—but she’s worried that, if she does, she’ll wake up. 

Instead, she types: _if i do, no one’s ever complained._

Trish is staring at her, glancing between Jamie’s face and her phone, resting flatly on the table in front of them, open to the world. No need to hide, Jamie thinks.

Dani is not her secret the way she is Dani’s.

[ **11:47** ] _I believe you._

And Jamie isn’t sure what to do with that, so she looks to Trish for answers, but all she finds is that same bombstruck expression.

“What?” she asks again, realizing she never got an answer.

“Oh, I-I just—” Trish stutters, taking a long pull from her drink before continuing. “You’re full of surprises. Both of you.”

Feeling, very suddenly, crisply sober, Jamie lets herself consider the tangled chaos of her own life. It pulses around her, circling her knees even now, so far away from its center—only visible to her; to Dani, perhaps; and now to Trish. 

“I have to stop this,” she says, “don’t I?”

But Trish doesn’t seem to have an answer for her. Jamie understands that one may not actually exist. It seems so easy—so black and white—when breathing outside the smoke-filled battlefield, littered with fallen mistakes and missed opportunities. It isn’t. She knows that now, but that does not mean she knows what to do about it.

Trish shakes her head. “I can’t tell you what to do, Jamie, but...”

“What?” says Jamie and she and Trish aren’t just friends or more than that; Trish is the bucket Jamie is using to empty the boat with and it’s getting too heavy to lift by herself.

A broken shrug. Another long drink from her straw. Jamie’s phone buzzes on the table and Trish looks at it, then at Jamie, and says, “You’re not the other woman, Jamie. You’re the _only_ woman.”

_______

That night, lying in bed, Jamie sends another message. Hopes Dani is awake. Hopes she’s fast asleep and won’t read it.

 _we have to talk about this, Dani,_ the message reads.

Saying this is not bravery. It is Daniel in the lions’ den. It is the ground being ripped from beneath their feet.

Dani is awake. The message is read immediately. The response takes a little longer.

[ **1:07** ] _I know_.

Jamie imagines her in that flat, lying in the darkness on the couch, feeling the same way that she is feeling: like a crack in the earth or a branch hanging off its tree by its pulpy sinews. 

Her phone vibrates a second time.

[ **1:07** ] _I’m sorry._

And Jamie feels so much like a child, heart caught in Dani’s tight, tight grasp, and her breath catches sharply in her throat. Her eyes burn, either from the glare of her phone, the words, or both. She does not let herself decide.

She just types back: _me too._

_______

The tightrope Jamie is balancing herself on is beginning to lose its slack. She knows this—knows she’s teetering on the edge; swaying left and right; almost slipping but not quite—and she reminds herself of it as Edmund sweeps out of the flat the next evening in a storm of fizzling resentment. She stands there and tries very hard not to hate him—hate that look he’s put in Dani’s eyes. The way she sits at the little table in their kitchen, straight-spined and glassy. 

Shirley keeps the camera’s rolling and suggests that Dani calls Theo. Jamie fidgets with the boom mike and tries not to ruin the shot, even as her arms quiver. Theo, of course, has her own take on the argument. _This has been a difficult two weeks for both of you_ , and, _You each need to take some time to let yourselves settle_ , and, _as long as you’re honest and open with one another, you can work through anything._ And Dani nods like she believes her while Jamie bites back the truth of the matter, which is this:

There is no amount of honesty and communication that can put back together two people who do not want to be.

The silence that descends once the call is over is deafening, echoing with the harsh tremble of Edmund’s words ( _we’re not just friends, Dani, we’re_ **_married_ ** ; _this won’t work if we can’t even sleep in the same_ **_bed_ ** ; and _i can’t be the only one trying here_ ) as they linger and linger. Refuse to dissipate.

Shirley cuts the cameras. Gives everyone a break while they wait for Edmund to return. There is little else they can do. In all the distraction, Dani gets up and goes to the living room window, looking out at the bright-light city night. And Jamie is a fool who knows better, so maybe that is why her hands ache as she approaches her—the burn of holding onto a rope that is being tugged and tugged away.

Dani does not look at her when Jamie comes to stand beside her, quiet. And they need to talk about this 

(they do, they _do_ )

but they don’t. Even though Jamie wants to say that she’s sorry on Edmund’s behalf for the way he’s bent her back—for wanting her despite the ring on her finger. For entertaining this and making Dani pull away from her marriage; causing this whole thing in the first place. Even though she wants to say a lot of things that she has not had the courage to utter—that have been resting sharp in her chest for what feels like an eternity. But she doesn’t. Can’t. Doesn’t matter.

There’s a soft touch to her hand, smooth and warm as it slides across her skin. Dani’s gentle fingers. Jamie grits her teeth to keep from responding, fixes her gaze on the shine of the window’s reflection, and simply lets Dani slide a hand into her own. Holds it back. Watches everyone else behind them in the window. Waits for someone to look.

No one does. 

In the window, Shirley stands just around the corner of the kitchen to the living room, talking to Russ and everyone is sitting or leaning, waiting for the moment to fade. Jamie’s heart thunders against her ribs and she squeezes Dani’s fingers with her own. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Dani release a deep breath, relaxing a little. And screw the math on this, Jamie loves her.

If this was the affair her guilty heart thinks it is, this touch would be reaffirmed later, in shadows that can only live behind closed doors. But it isn’t an affair. It isn’t a flirtation. 

It is the simple, buoyant wish of two people foolish enough to yearn for it.

The front door opens in the hallway. Dani lets go, drifts her fingers away slowly, drifts herself away slowly, toward her husband, resolute and determined—that camera-ready mask sliding over her face. She doesn’t look back at Jamie even once, but here’s a bit of truth:

Jamie hadn’t expected her to.

..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...i'm so sorry.


	8. Love Languages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, god. this is 13k. more than. and oh, boy.
> 
> hold onto your butts, comrades.

“Wow,” says Carrie with poorly packaged enthusiasm, “it’s hard to believe it’s been, what? Almost three weeks?”

“Eighteen days,” says Dani, “and yeah, I know what you mean.”

“Do you guys feel a lot...closer than you did even since the honeymoon?” 

“We’ve definitely...you know, gone through _more_ than most couples would in the same amount of time, I think,” says Edmund. He glances at Dani, seated to his right, to give her a smile, but, picking at her food, she doesn’t see it. 

“Of course, _Dani’s_ gonna put you through the ringer,” says John.

Trish kicks him beneath the table.

“ _Jesus_ ,” says John, voice sparking hot with surprise and pain. “Tell me again why you don’t play football.” 

“Thank you, Trish,” says Dani, finally coming back into the conversation. “But I can fight my own battles.”

She kicks him beneath the table, too.

“Yow!” he howls, bending awkwardly to clutch his shin out of sight.

Dani smirks. “Like I said.”

Trish reaches across the table and they wiggle their fingers against one another’s in a strange, familiar handshake.

“Sorry about them,” says Carrie, looking at Edmund’s friends, Ellison and Tracy, with a vaguely apologetic expression.

Ellison, who is laughing around a bite of his food, waves the apology away. “No need,” he says.

“Dani, I’m just glad you’ve stuck around this long,” says Tracy, pointing her fork at Edmund across the table. “He’s got a bit of reputation for running girls away.”

Edmund balks. “Lies,” he says. “Lies and slander.”

“No, she’s right,” Ellison agrees, slinging an arm around his girlfriend’s chair. “Remember that girl...what was her name? The one that left in the middle of dinner because she had to—” and, this next part, he says with particularly expressive air quotations, “—go for a jog?”

The others at the table laugh in chorus. Edmund looks scandalized, though perhaps a bit pleased that Dani is smiling and looking at him so freely. “She was training for a marathon,” he tries to defend. 

“Or...what was her name? Kimberly?” says Tracy.

“That’s right; the one he nearly got killed,” says Ellison.

Dani hums, curious. “So you have a rap sheet,” she says and Edmund, so elated by her involvement that slings his arm around the back of her chair to hold her close, instead of answering.

“Let’s just say he has a habit of not looking both ways before he crosses the street,” says Tracy, leaning into her boyfriend. “It’s gotten him into some trouble in the past.”

Leaning across the table, Edmund begins his own rebuttal, much to Ellison and Tracy’s delight. Carrie and John are far too busy pushing out of their chairs to take a tour of the one-bedroom flat to care much about the conversation at the table. And Trish—

Well, the final cut of the episode will only show the back of her head. It will linger too long on Edmund’s arm slung around his wife, and don’t they complement one another so well? My, can’t she play the role? Born to force a smile and laugh at all the right places; to let her husband pull her closer; to let her best friend scrutinize her every movement from across the table.

A glimpse of the truth, featured here: blue eyes flicking upwards, roaming, looking for something and then—oh, _then_ —finding it; finding _her_ and that smile blooms like a stream spilling over pebbles, becoming something more. Something _real_.

From the corner of the room, born to stumble forward in the darkness, Jamie doesn’t waste even a second before smiling back.

_______

“If you two hadn’t met through this...If you’d just met at, like, the pub or something...Do you think you’d still be here?” says Ellison to Dani after dinner. They are seated on the sofa in the living room with Tracy, the two of them leaning into one another while Dani sits against the armrest on the other side. The other necessary things have already been said: _how are things going_ and _i can tell he really likes you_ and _you look fabulous together_. Now there is time for the strange things. The odd questions. Ones that make the air chill and hang frozen around them.

Dani nodded along as they bombarded her with these things, stormless on the cool water, her responses and ready-made answers drifting along the surface in breezeless bliss. No trouble. No hesitancy. Just the perfect subject in front of the relentless cameras.

So far, it has made Shirley anxious. Made her bite at her thumbnail and frown. Jamie has been eyeing her with a bit of caution from where she’s standing against the wall nearest Dani, waiting impatiently for whatever it is that’s going to break.

But as soon as Ellison speaks, there it is; Shirley perks up at once, eyes fixed on the way Dani’s eyebrows furrow for just a blink-and-you-missed-it second. 

Fortunately, Dani is learning to recover quickly.

“I don’t know,” she answers without conflict. “Maybe.”

Ellison nods, amused despite the non-answer. “Is he your type or did you, like, panic when you saw him at the altar?” 

Tracy frowns at him from across the couch, but he doesn’t appear to see it.

Again, Dani’s expression stutters. 

(Her talking head, edited into this pause in conversation, later: _I like Eddie a lot and I think we’re getting along really well. But we’re still in the early days and that’s really not something I think is anyone else’s business but our own_.)

“My type?” she asks after a moment, buffering.

“Just ignore him,” says Tracy.

“Yeah, your type. Is he the kind of guy you’d typically go for?” says Ellison.

Dani stares at him blankly, unable to decipher the meaning of the question.

Clearly, she’s coming to the understanding that she’s going to have to say _something_.

“I mean, sure,” she says, the words thin and weak.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she tries next. “He’s got...I like brown hair. Curly. It’s...nice.”

It’s said with all the thunder of a glaring truth; guileless and frank. Jamie feels her lungs go cold. Her air freezes jaggedly in her chest. There are a lot of Edmund’s traits that Dani could admit to finding endearing or loveable, but she has chosen the one that just so happens to—

It’s Shirley who looks over at Jamie, not Dani, and it is a strange look, a little like that of a woman with bottomless, meddlesome interest and it makes Jamie want to shrink into herself. 

Of course, she knows why Dani won’t look at her; days have passed and they still haven’t talked, no, but the texts haven’t stopped, the conversations they probably shouldn’t be having; and that makes the admission here even worse, makes Jamie feel like some churlish, savage predator and—

“Oh, is that all?” jokes Ellison and there’s probably more to say about the whole thing, but Tracy dives in with a rescue before it can be said.

_______

“You look exhausted,” says Trish, appearing in that dazzling and genial way she always does. She has a half-empty glass of wine in one hand and she stands with one of her hips cocked, the bedroom light softening the angles of her face in a way that would normally beguile Jamie in an instant.

But she is standing in Dani’s bedroom, packing up her equipment, and trying not to think about the bed at the center of the room—the one that Dani and Edmund share every night. Out in the living room, the others are talking and laughing, still. Ellison and Tracy are saying their goodnights and Shirley is going over the next day’s shoot with Edmund and Dani both. Standing here, though, it is silent and strange, like a moment suspended and stretched in time. 

So far detached from regular life.

“Yeah, well,” is all Jamie offers, throwing a cheerless smile Trish’s way.

“Here,” says Trish, holding out her wine glass. “Seriously. You look like you could use it way more than me.”

Jamie shakes her head and tries to decline the offer, saying, “Oh, I—” before Trish cuts her off.

“You’re off the clock now, right?” she asks. “So...what’s the harm?”

And, yeah, she has a point. Jamie tucks the cord she’s been slowly wrapping around her hand into the bag she has resting on the end of the bed and takes the glass. The rest of the wine is drained in one long swallow and Jamie hands it, empty, back to the other woman.

“There you go.” Trish pats her on the shoulder soothingly. 

From the other room, a loud laugh can be heard from Edmund. The sound is jarring, knocking reality back into Jamie’s bones with all the force of a tent peg into the temple of Sisera. 

“I’m sorry you’re here for this,” Trish says next, trying a new tactic, it seems.

“Have to be,” says Jamie. “It’s my job.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean the whole situation isn’t fucked.”

Jamie hums, returning to her slow collection of the rest of her microphones. “Only have myself to blame for that.”

Trish frowns, wine glass dangling at her side. “It’s not just you,” she says.

And Jamie understands that. She knows. But her own bitter disappointment in herself rakes its claws over the bones of her spine and it is hard to blame Dani for any part of it. The ocean-sparkle of the ghost they share is evident in Dani’s eyes whenever they meet her own. She is not the only guilty party, no, but, at the end of the day, _she_ is the only person she has to live with every moment.

“They haven’t had sex,” says Trish. “Carrie and John were pestering her earlier for details while we were in here talking and—”

“It’s not my business,” Jamie says, though the words surge like stars over her vision. 

_So, so, so_ , a voice whispers in her mind; she is trying not to listen to it.

“Yeah,” Trish says, “it is.”

Jamie zips up her bag and hefts it up, slinging the whole thing over her shoulder. “She’s married to him. She can do whatever she wants.”

“Clearly.” 

And there’s a high note of bitterness in the word; unspoken resentment towards her very best of friends on behalf of this marriage’s _other woman_. How sweet she is, but Jamie can fight her own battles. 

In theory anyway.

The reality, though, is that Trish is simply worried about her. About Dani. About the whole situation and shouldn’t she be? Shouldn’t _Jamie_ be? They’re playing with matches in the middle of a powder keg and, given the strange looks Shirley has been giving her for the past few days, the shadows surrounding the whole thing are beginning to retreat.

Still, she thinks of Dani in this bed with her husband: pressed to the other side, pillows between them, saying goodnight and then turning her back to him. Texting Jamie in the dark. Wedding ring rested on the nightstand and that vacant finger curled around her phone, holding it closer and closer. 

She shouldn’t be relieved by this knowledge. But she’s known for over a month now that there are a lot of things she shouldn’t be, and yet she is all of them at once.

“Did she say why?” Jamie asks; another strike of a match in the dark. 

“She said they’re not _there_ yet.”

 _Yet_ , Jamie’s mind sings. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t mean that—”

A soft hand reaches out and takes hers. Fingers squeeze delicately at her own. 

“Jamie,” Trish says. “I think it does.”

Jamie breathes so deeply that it aches in her lungs. Lets Trish hold her hand and consider the possibilities—whether or not there are any.

They stand there for a few more moments. Silent comfort from someone used to standing behind enemy lines. Needed, perhaps, because there is no one in Jamie’s life that she can speak to about this. Owen is busy with his own life and the last thing she wants to do is add her own messy choices to a heaping plate of other things he needs to be focusing on. 

Trish is it. So Jamie lets her be. Pretends for a little while that she is someone capable of standing on her own.

When they leave the room, one after the other, Dani’s eyes catch them from where she’s standing beneath the sling of Edmund’s arm. The look lingers for a long time, until long after Trish has gone to rejoin her friends in their goodbyes. Jamie carries its weight all the way home.

_______

Jamie is lying in her bed, trying and trying and trying to turn her brain off just long enough for her to fall into a fitful sleep, when her phone begins to vibrate viciously on her nightstand, bathing the ceiling in harsh light. Making her blink. Some part of her knows who it is, what it’s about, before she even turns to look. Some part of her has been expecting this call since she left the flat earlier.

There is a brief moment of hesitation; one second where she wonders if she should just ignore it, leave it alone. Let Dani think she’s sleeping and put whatever it is they need to talk about onto any empty back burners they have left. But there’s an ache settled beneath her ribcage that’s been there for weeks and she has been making almost all of her decisions by it.

“Hello?” she answers.

There’s a pause, then a soft, “Hey, sorry.”

Jamie sits up in the darkness and cradles her phone against her ear. Says, “What’s up?” as casually as possible.

She must not be successful, though, because Dani’s next question is, “Bad time?” and it comes out whispering and soft, as if she’s nervous that someone might overhear her. Maybe she is.

Her phone read ten fifty-three when she picked it up to answer. Typically, Dani is at least in bed by nine. Or so Jamie assumes because that’s when the messages tend to stop. Tonight is an outlier. She’s trying not to wonder why.

“ _Late_ time,” she returns. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just…”

“What?” Jamie asks, trying to temper down the fever-flare pitch of her voice. She hates this dance they do. Hates it so much, even as she can’t imagine what her life had been before she learned the steps. “Is Edmund there?”

More than anything: she hates that she has to ask at all.

“No, um. He’s...He’s sleeping already.”

Oh.

“Okay,” Jamie says. Doesn’t know if there’s anything else _to_ say.

There’s a pause and then Dani says, “Is...something going on with Trish?” very softly. Another pause and then this clarifier: “Between _you_ and...Trish?”

For a moment, Jamie is too surprised to respond, or to even fathom what it is that Dani’s just asked. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard her voice sound like _that_. A match strikes hot in her chest.

“Why?” she asks, soft and measured.

Another pause. Dani says, “I just...I don’t know. It just seems like...there might be?”

A memory, unbidden: that club the night of Dani’s bachelorette party and Trish leaning in, saying _trying to prove this theory I have_ and the way she kissed Jamie’s cheek on the sidewalk with Dani right there; the way Dani’s gaze felt as it brushed over her skin on her way out of the bedroom, Trish so close, and with Edmund’s arm around Dani like that, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think; couldn’t anything at all really because—

She sits there in her bed and closes her eyes against the still darkness. Thinks about Dani, across the city, a thousand worlds away and too close all at once.

“Why, Dani?” she tries again. 

“Why what?” Dani asks, either truly clueless or choosing it as the safest hiding place.

“Why would it matter?” 

Not even toeing the line anymore, just stepping directly on it. Rubbing it away with the scuff of her heels. 

Put an end to it. Keep your distance. Don’t push it, but here she is following anything but her own advice. Playing the fool and entirely outmatched. She has dreams of a life somewhere else—together; always together. Dani smiling with the sun brushing warmth on her cheeks, her mouth pressed to Jamie’s skin as she whispers _it’s you, it’s you, it’s always been you_. She has dreams of licking down Dani’s stomach and wakes alone with wet, itchy eyes.

There is no answer. Only the shuddering breath of the woman on the other line in Jamie’s ear, so she tries again:

“If something was happening between Trish and I,” she says, curving the words as they come out to form the sharpest edges possible, “why would you care, Dani?”

She knows why, of course. They both do, just as they did the day Dani got married when Jamie tried to lay bare as much as she could. But, just like then, she needs Dani to say it. To acknowledge it verbally. For _once_.

“Jamie,” says Dani on the edge of a sigh. “I—”

“Why, Dani?” 

“I can’t—” and maybe there’s more, but that’s where Dani stops and, while it admits exactly nothing, it is answer enough for now.

“Yeah,” Jamie says, “I know you can’t.”

And she does. She knows it in the same way that she knows that staying is not a choice; it is resignation because she is a trapped and flightless thing, too tired to even bump against the walls of her confinement. 

“Jamie,” says Dani, a whisper. Nothing more.

“There’s nothing between Trish and I, Poppins,” Jamie tells her. “You know that. And you know why.”

A pause. Then: “Yeah.” 

“Yeah,” Jamie repeats.

“I’m sorry,” comes next and it slices into Jamie’s stomach so gently that she doesn’t even notice the pain at first. She is too stuck on Dani’s, “Goodnight, Jay,” to be.

Too trapped by her unvoiced _me too_ to do anything at all.

_______

“Change of plans,” says Shirley as soon as the call connects the next morning.

Jamie, leaned against her kitchen counter, chewing on a piece of toast, mumbles, “Huh?” 

Crumbs fall out of her mouth and flutter to the floor, dusting the toes of her socks.

“I have Russ with the guys at the Leisure Centre today. I want you with him.”

Swallowing thickly around her food, she says, “What about—” and thinks of Owen; the way Shirley’s lips curled around the phrase _conflict of interest_ back at the start of this whole thing. 

“Don’t worry about that. I think the other team can handle the lunch.”

And it’s true, but that’s not the point. The point is that Jamie has been barred in the past from doing anything while Owen was around. Her days off have always conveniently coincided with any group activities. There has been a strict low-contact rule that’s made even seeing her best friend nigh impossible as of late.

“Okay,” says Jamie. 

Any other arguments she could have revolve around wanting to see Dani—to be there while she has lunch with the other women. The last time she’d seen Dani, the night before, her expression had been one of sharp melancholy, and their phone call the night before had done little to assuage her worry.

But there is nothing to be done.

“Thanks, Jamie,” says Shirley, and she disconnects before Jamie can say anything else.

_______

“How are you already sweaty? You’re not even doing anything yet,” says Jamie, even as she hugs Owen back as tightly as she can.

“Oh, shush,” says Owen, rocking her back and forth in his arms. “You love it.”

She laughs and pulls away. “No,” she says. “Not really.”

Owen stands with his hands on his hips, grinning at her like she is the very best thing he’s seen all day. He’s wearing an exercise t-shirt she’s never seen before and a pair of trainers that she’s certain will be too slippery for the astroturf of the indoor football field. And it feels like it’s been years rather than just a week or so and so much has changed for him in so little time that she fights the urge to fall back into old habits and tease him for the little things.

“Wow,” he says. “Look at you.”

He’s got this cheeky grin that she doesn’t appreciate, like he knows something she doesn’t.

“Stop it,” she says.

“No.” Stretching out an arm, he playfully punches her shoulder. “What’s changed about you in the last week?”

He says it on the air of a joke, but Jamie recognizes the edge of worry there—fear that she will have actually changed so much that he won’t be able to catch up. She certainly knows the feeling. It rattles in her chest as her eyes catch the silver of his wedding band on his left hand.

“Nothing, really. You know me,” she lies. “How’s married life treating you?”

That silly grin only gets worse. “Really well,” he says. “Really, _really_ well.”

 _God_ . She doesn’t need to know _that_.

But: “I’m happy for you, Owen.”

And: “You deserve it.”

He kicks at her, looking embarrassed. There’s so much she wants to tell him and she feels desperate to lean into him and let him offer to carry her for a while, as he always has in the past. She’s been dealing with everything entirely on her own—save for Trish—and she knows that he wouldn’t allow that for one more second if he knew only a bit of what’s been happening.

But, even if she were willing to slice through his contentment for her own sake, there isn’t time. Russ is calling for her from the other side of the field, where Peter is now standing, looking a little irked in that way he so often does. Jamie throws up her index finger, indicating that she needs a moment, then tugs a mike pack out of her bag.

“Lord,” Owen sighs, eyeing Peter with a certain wariness that Jamie feels echoed in herself, “Not looking forward to being pit against that bloke.”

She hands him the mike and watches him clip it to the back of his shorts. He threads the wire up through his shirt and she pinches it between her fingers when it appears at his shirt collar, clipping it to the hem. “Just try not to get the ball,” she advises and Owen narrows his eyes at her.

“I’m not a quitter,” he says, turning a bit so she can turn his mike on.

“Yeah, well—” She pats his shoulder and pulls away, starting towards Russ and Peter. “Neither is he, so…”

When she turns around to glance Owen’s way one last time, he sticks his tongue out at her.

_______

“Hey, good to see you again,” Owen greets as the cameras start rolling, smiling at Peter as fully as he is capable as Peter kicks the football over toward him.

“Hey,” says Peter. “You, too.” They shake hands a little stiffly, the pair of them equally unsure around one another.

Russ winces from behind the cameras. 

“Playing some football today, yeah?” is what Peter says next, like he’s just grasping for something to say.

“So it would seem,” says Owen. “Fair warning: I’m dreadful.”

Peter laughs. “Oh, can’t be that bad, can it?”

“It can actually. It can be _worse_.”

As the tension begins to disintegrate, Jamie has been charged with getting Edmund, who has arrived a little late, ready. He looks as tired as Jamie feels, smiling weakly in greeting as Jamie offers him his own mike pack. Like Owen, he’s done this dance so many times before that he already knows all the steps. All Jamie has to do is watch him and make sure the mike is actually on all the way. 

There’s a moment where they’re just standing there, facing one another, and Jamie briefly considers what they are to one another. _Rivals_ seems too harsh a word; _peer_ too weak. They are not friends, this much is evident in the difficulty each experiences making direct eye contact for too long. The only thing they have in common is Dani, and Jamie isn’t certain that Edmund even knows that.

Selfishly, she hopes he does not.

“All good?” he asks, ruffling a hand through his hair and blinking at her behind his glasses.

Jamie nods. “All good,” she confirms and then he smiles, all boyish charm and endearing decency.

“Thanks,” he says and then he steps around her and jogs out onto the field.

_______

When the episode airs, the entire thing will take six minutes or less. There will be a talking head with Peter chopped up and scattered throughout, as well as one shot separately with Charlotte.

Peter will say a lot about wanting to check in with the other guys to see how their marriages are going. He will say something along the lines of _since we all know what each other is going through_. 

Charlotte will talk about the importance of camaraderie. The necessity of relying on others who understand your situation. In front of the dark blue backdrop of her studio “office,” she will smile and look sincere. Exaggerated facial expressions to get the point across. Pander to the fans who favor companionship over histrionics just before the conversation between the men changes.

Owen, winded from chasing the football up and down the field for the better part of an hour, is bent at the waist, leaning his elbows above his knees when Peter says:

“How are you and Hannah getting on, Owen?”

Standing up, Owen waves a hand his way and leans his head back, trying to catch his breath. “Good,” he wheezes. “Very good.”

Peter laughs, throwing a look at an equally delighted Edmund. “Alright, mate?”

“Sure, sure.” He waves his hand again and puts his hands on his hips as he tries to calm down. “The thing...about Arsenal—” he pants out heavily, “—is...they always try to...walk it in.”

“Arsenal?” Edmund asks, amused.

“Never mind,” says Owen, finally opening his eyes and centering himself. “Just a bit of humor.”

Peter claps him on the back so hard that Owen almost falls over. “We should’ve gone easier on ya’, yeah?”

“I did warn you that I’m—” Another harsh breath, “—terrible.”

Keeping his hand on Owen’s back, Peter turns his attention to Edmund next. There’s a glint in his eye like he’s trying to prove something, though it isn’t exactly clear _what_ yet. 

“What about you guys?” he says. “Things gettin’ any better?”

Jamie’s lips curl. _Better_ , she thinks. Has Edmund stated things have been _worse_ before?

“A little, yeah,” says Edmund, eyes fixed on the ground; the portrait of forced ease as he tries to seem unaffected. “It’s just like…I don’t know. Like, talk about confusing signals, you know?”

Owen frowns. “What do you mean?” 

Running a hand through his hair, Edmund shrugs and rolls his eyes towards the ceiling briefly. Steeling himself for whatever is about to come next. “It’s just, like...one minute, we’re fine, right? We’ll be, like, cuddling on the couch or whatever and then I’ll try to kiss her or something and she’ll just like...shut down.”

“Really?” Peter asks.

“Yeah. And— I don’t know. She keeps sleeping on the couch because I _snore_ —” and he puts air quotes there, “—or because she can’t sleep, which is fine. Whatever. But it’s _every night_. And we’re just...stuck, I think. I’m trying to let her set the pace of things because I don’t want her to be uncomfortable, but like—”

“Have you talked to her about it?” Owen asks, always the logical one.

Edmund nods. “A few times. We’re just...But...I mean, is it so wrong to want to have sex with your wife?”

From where she’s standing by the wall, Jamie swallows thickly, _focuses_. The air around her feels tight, almost stretched too thin, and her hands are shaking with— she’s not sure what, exactly. Dani is married. She is married to Edmund. She is elsewhere in the city, having lunch with the other women, and Jamie is standing in the same room as her husband, fluttering in and out of existence with all the unfettered ache of someone dangling over the briny waves of the ocean. Breathless. Waiting for the plunge.

Owen is not looking at Edmund anymore. He has suddenly found the fake grass beneath his feet endlessly fascinating. Briefly, his eyes meet Jamie’s as he glances up and he sends her a powerless smile, but there’s something lost to it.

When Jamie can’t bring herself to return it, Owen does not know why.

Peter smiles at Edmund with his wolf’s teeth and shakes his head in bald fortitude. “’Course not,” he says. “I hardly let Rebecca out of bed.”

A joke, perhaps, but the words seem to crackle around him when he speaks, his tone hawk-like and hungry. Jamie is certain she is not imagining the weight it carries, but Edmund does not seem to notice it in the same way. He laughs and Peter laughs and the tension breaks right then, but the editors will throw something else in before showing the way the boys say goodbye and go their separate ways:

Edmund, using the camera for his and Dani’s video diary, in their apartment and saying, “It was good to see the guys and I’m glad everything is going well for them, but...It’s just a little frustrating to feel like me and Dani are the only couple that’s not... _getting_ anywhere.”

_______

“Oh,” says Shirley, “Jamie, thanks for coming.”

The cutting room is one of Jamie’s least favorite places in the entire studio; things are always in a mad scramble. Separate teams working on dailies, cutting together different episodes at the same time. Too many screens, too many angles of Dani’s face—seven from what she can see; most of them from the shoot the day before—and Jamie already had a migraine before she got Shirley’s text. 

Now it’s all the worse.

It’s here that Shirley is her most triumphal, like a child set loose on a playground, and the air practically shakes around her, buzzing with impatient enthusiasm. She has her trusty clipboard held tightly to her chest, hovering over the shoulder of her preferred team of editors. 

“’Course,” says Jamie, coming to a halt just in front of her. She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans and rocks back on her heels. “What did you need me for?”

Shirley parts her lips to answer, but is interrupted by one of the editors, Grace, who has pulled up some footage from the girls’ lunch on one of the screens in front of her. 

“Is this the section you wanted to look at?” she asks and Shirley turns, resting one hand on the back of Grace’s chair so she can lean closer to the screen.

“It looks like it,” she says. “Can you play it back?”

Despite the hubbub surrounding them, the audio of the recently-captured clip is loud enough that Jamie can hear it even from where she’s standing. On the screen, Hannah is sitting on one side of a table in a restaurant, facing away from the camera. Across from her sits Dani and, to Dani’s left, is Rebecca. 

“—have this _useless_ philosophy degree just lying around,” Rebecca is saying, rolling her eyes. “But what can you do?” 

“What did Peter go to school for?” Dani asks and Rebecca’s expression becomes one of bemusement. 

“Lord, if I know,” she says. “It’s hard to get him to say two words about his past.” She laughs as if this is one of his most charming features, and Hannah and Dani join in obligatorily.

“Goodness, I think I know what Owen had for lunch every day for the last twenty-eight years,” says Hannah, and Jamie has to smile at that. She sounds overjoyed by this simple fact, and Jamie has to swallow back a surge of pride.

“Want to trade?” Rebecca jokes and Hannah laughs, but is quick to shake her head.

“Never.”

“No, this wasn’t it,” says Shirley, tapping Grace on the shoulder. “A bit ahead?” Grace fast-forwards the footage for a few seconds, stopping only once Shirley says, “Stop.”

“Isn’t Edmund a student?” Rebecca is asking, eyes on Dani.

Dani nods. “Yeah,” she says. “At University College.”

Rebecca makes a strange face, caught off guard. “Oh,” she says.

Playing with the straw sticking out of her water cup, Dani frowns. “What?” she asks, lining the word with a bit of a laugh.

“I just thought it must have been MetFilm School,” comes the answer and oh, Jamie thinks, _shit_ . “With your jacket.” She nods to Jamie’s jacket, currently wrapping up Dani’s torso, and _oh_ ; _oh no_.

“I thought so, too,” says Hannah.

Words fail Dani. She fixes her eyes on the table for a long moment. “No,” she says eventually. “No, it’s not his.”

“Huh,” says Shirley, glancing at Jamie. “I must have missed this conversation the first time.”

“Do you want me to playback?” Grace asks.

Shirley shakes her head. “No, that’s okay.” She turns back to Jamie and says, “Isn’t that where _you_ went to school?”

“Um...yeah.” Jamie deliberately stares at the screen, at Dani’s face paused there—her expression one of caught panic; she feels it, too. In her pockets, she balls her fists up so tightly that it hurts. “Is this what you needed me for?”

“Not at all.” Shirley waves the idea out of the air with a vague gesture. “I just wanted to apologize for catching you off guard this morning and tell you that everything should be normal tomorrow.”

And, given the way she’s looking at her, Jamie is certain that not one part of Shirley expects her to believe this. This information could have just as easily been shared via text or email. There was no need to have her come all the way to the studio for something so trivial. Not unless—

“Oh,” says Jamie, irritability surging like waves through her. “Right. Thanks.”

“We have an early session with Theo at Edmund and Dani’s in the morning.”

“Okay.”

“That was all.”

“Right, well…thanks,” says Jamie, giving Shirley a rueful smile that Shirley returns, but there’s a smugness to it that reminds Jamie of Trish.

It’s like she can’t get out of there fast enough.

_______

“Hey, Jamie,” says Theo, standing very still. “Good to see you again.”

Jamie helps her clip the mike pack to the belt of her jeans and steps back to let Theo finish the rest, shivering as the breeze brushes past her, wrapping its cold tendrils through her hair and sinking down the collar of her jacket. It’s early and one of the first days of late autumn cold. Doing this initial talking head with Theo inside would save them all from these more desperate temperatures. Maybe it would make Horace or Carl a little less grouchy. But Shirley likes to do talking heads outside as much as possible, enchanted by the slightly-out-of-focus buzz of the city in the background of them. 

Upstairs, Russ is getting the flat ready for the camera crew’s arrival, running Dani and Edmund through the plan for the shoot. But even the promise of potential warmth waiting for them up there does nothing to loosen the tight knots in Jamie’s stomach at the thought of being caught between Dani and Shirley both.

There’s a chance the day could begin _and_ end in disaster.

Theo has finished clipping her lavalier to her collar and flipped on the mike pack. “All set?” she asks, smiling kindly.

“All set,” Jamie returns. 

“Everything alright?” Theo asks. “You seem a little...down.”

“Yeah, I’m good. Long days and all. You know how it goes.”

It’s clear from her expression that Theo doesn’t believe her for a second, but she must be saving the hard-hitting psychoanalysis for the cameras because she lets it go. “Okay,” she says, and Shirley calls for her from near the building’s doors. She glances over Jamie’s shoulder at her sister, but ignores her for the time being so that she can do something Jamie has _never_ seen her do before: touch someone.

Touch _her,_ which is the weirdest part. She reaches out and gives Jamie’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.

For a moment, Jamie is too shocked to do anything but stand there and nod as Theo says, “I know my sister can be a lot. That this _job_ can be a lot. But...hang in there.”

With that, she gives Jamie another squeeze and heads off to meet her sister.

Horace comes over, shivering even beneath his thick coat. “Okay, kid?” he gruffs, pink-nosed and fixing her with his patented fatherly worry. 

For all the walls she’s spent her life building, there isn’t a person, it seems, that hasn’t practically seen right through her. She wants to disappear. Go to sleep for a very long time, or else run away from this whole situation. Get in a car and start driving. Just leave it all behind in the rearview mirror. 

But, because she can’t do anything, she forces a smile instead. Says, “I’m fine,” and then, “Are _you_ , you big baby?”

And Horace laughs twice: when she says this and when she bumps his shoulder playfully.

It’s a nice sound. One of the best ones Jamie’s heard all morning. If only every moment could be like this one, she thinks. But they can’t.

_______

Apparently, she’s not the only open book.

Edmund is the one who answers the door and lets Theo in, offering her a friendly greeting and that winning smile. There’s a chair set up in front of the couch that isn’t normally there and Theo sits down in it while Edmund sits across from her and it is silent for a beat too long.

And then Theo says, “So, how are you?”

The facade drops in an instant. “I’m here,” says Edmund.

That consolatory press of Theo’s lips. Closer to a frown than a smile. “What’s going on?”

And Jamie already knows what’s going on. She’s known one half of it practically since the start of this whole thing, and the time spent with the boys playing football the day before filled her in on Edmund’s side of it. There isn’t a single part of her that wants to hear him air the same grievances again. It’s unfair and probably the most selfish thing she’s done in her life, but she dips out of the living room while everyone is distracted with the mini therapy session being filmed.

Down the slip of the hallway and to the bedroom, where the door is slightly ajar. That most sacred of places, cut off by everything but a flaming sword, but she wants to see Dani, even when she knows she shouldn’t.

It’s much too late for her to learn anyway.

She is remembering: the way Dani’s ankles rested against her own beneath the table at the brunch they shared, her hair curling in the breeze, the warmth of the sun that, once gone, left Jamie frostbitten and shivering.

That slide of Dani’s skin against her own when their hands touched in the room where Edmund is currently lamenting their relationship’s imperfections. How gentle the squeeze of her fingers. How hot the melt of the air huffed out of her nose against Jamie’s cheek as they kissed in the moonlight.

At least, she thinks, she has the excuse of miking Dani for her bit if anyone asks.

Dani is sitting on the bed, a pair of headphones covering her ears and her eyes fixed on a laptop placed on her stretched-out legs. She doesn’t notice the intrusion at first, allowing Jamie a moment to adore her: the soft sway of her blonde hair around her shoulders; the way she chews on her bottom lip; the pale column of her neck, visible despite the hood of Jamie’s jacket bagging around her shoulders. And because Jamie is a hopeless, starving mess of a woman, she cannot bring herself to look away.

Not even when Dani finally sees her and smiles in dazzling confusion. “Hey,” she greets, tugging her headphones down to hang around her neck. “He can’t be done already.”

“No, he’s—” Jamie shakes her head. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” says Dani. “It’s, um...It’s good to see you.”

“You, too,” she says, thinking of how different this phrase sounds coming from Dani and not Theo. How awed and wonderful. 

A day. It’s been one day. 

Jamie can’t fathom that.

“Am I needed for something?”

“No, not…” Jamie trails off, heart sinking into her stomach, though she can’t quite discern why. “I just—” She cuts herself off and Dani looks so concerned that she scrambles to gather her thoughts. “You’re wearing my jacket.”

If a pin dropped right then, she thinks everyone in London might hear it. Dani stares at her with lips parted, forehead scrunched as she considers the sudden twist of this conversation. Jamie shifts her weight back and forth, feeling more than a little on display. She takes a few steps into the bedroom and pushes the door mostly-shut behind herself. 

“I just mean...Again.”

“Yeah,” Dani says. Just that one word said in a hushed voice.

“Yeah,” Jamie repeats, the word a little harder in her own voice.

Dani blinks. Licks her dry lips and doesn’t look away. “I...I was going to take it off before the shoot,” she says. “Yesterday—”

And before she can finish this thought, Jamie cuts in and says, “I know.” At Dani’s curious frown, she adds, “I saw the dailies from...from, um...yesterday.”

Understanding fills Dani’s eyes as she says this, as if she hadn’t considered the possibility of Jamie seeing events she was not present for. She blinks again, a few times in a row, and then shakes her head.

“Just...after...I didn’t think it was a good idea to wear it in front of the cameras.”

Jamie nods. “Okay.”

Pushing the laptop from her legs, Dani sits up a little, crossing her legs to straighten her spine. “I don’t mean, like…” She shakes her head, looking away as she pulls the sleeves of the jacket around her palms, burrowing into it. “I can give it back, if you want me to.”

But Jamie doesn’t want that. That isn’t what this whole thing is supposed to be about. She doesn’t _know_ what it’s supposed to be about. There are too many things that have been left unsaid that they’re beginning to pile up, higher and higher, threatening to collapse at any moment and suffocate them both. She wants to say all of them and none of them at once, but this isn’t the right time. The right place.

The right _anything_.

She swallows thickly and takes a few seconds to try and script herself before she speaks next. “I, um...I think Shirley thinks that...something is going on,” she says. “Between us, I mean.”

As she watches, Dani inhales shakily and drops her suddenly wide eyes to her lap. 

“She hasn’t said anything,” Jamie rushes to add, afraid that she’s just made everything that much more precarious. “Not exactly. But—”

And she can’t think of how to end that thought, so she simply _doesn’t_.

Either way, Dani seems to be on the same page now. “Okay,” she breathes, nodding a few times. Centering herself. “Okay, okay.”

“I just...I’m sorry, Poppins, I—”

“It’s okay,” Dani cuts in. She lifts her face again to meet Jamie’s eyes and there’s something in them now that makes Jamie’s stomach curdle. “Because there isn’t, right?”

Jamie feels sharp panic fill her chest with her next inhale. “Dani,” she starts, but there’s no point in finishing.

“There’s nothing going on,” Dani says, and even as she says it, they both know that it’s a lie. There is so much going on, lying beneath the surface of every look, every slight touch, every _word_. “We’re friends. Right?”

“Yeah,” says Jamie because they _are_ : “But—”

Dani gets to her feet and tosses her headphones onto the bed, running a shaky hand through her hair. She’s practically vibrating and it would be so easy for Jamie to cross the room and pull her into her arms, but she doesn’t. Can’t. “I’m married, Jay,” she says, and there’s that _nickname_ despite it all.

“I know you are.”

“I’m married and we’re friends.”

Jamie says, “Yes,” because that’s the truth as it can exist. 

As she watches, Dani strips off Jamie’s jacket, but she doesn’t hand it over. Instead, she opens the top drawer of the nearest dresser and sets it inside, slamming it shut with a resounding _thud_. 

Too loud. Making Jamie jump. Blink in surprise. Meet Dani’s eyes again. 

“You should probably…” Dani says, nodding toward the door leading to the hallway. 

Jamie nods. “Yeah.”

“Before anyone—”

“Yeah.”

The air in the room is quiet and cool. Theo’s voice drifts lazily down the hallway to meet them through the door. Jamie is trying very desperately to keep from crying, and it’s ridiculous, but she can’t help but feel like something has been torn ruggedly from the very center of her chest. As if Dani has just forced her fingers through the gentle pericardium behind her sternum and ripped her heart out in one dripping try.

There must be something in Dani that feels it too—those fingers slicked with Jamie’s blood—because she takes a step forward right as Jamie takes a step back. “Jamie, I—” she says, but Jamie shakes her head. Knows that if Dani says one more word, she might not have the strength to leave at all.

“No need,” she says quickly, refusing to get stuck in the wet shimmer of Dani’s eyes. “Another life maybe.”

She leaves Dani’s mike on the dresser by the door. Decides that, if she needs help with it, Horace will have to be the one to provide it.

In the living room, Theo is telling Edmund not to put up walls. Not to give up and push Dani away.

Good advice. The kind fit for a husband.

But Jamie is a friend. Nothing more. And clearly she needs to try something different.

_______

On the couch in the living room when it’s Edmund’s turn to hide out in the bedroom, Dani avoids making eye contact with Theo directly and spends a good deal of time blaming herself. Outside, it has begun to rain; heavy slants of pattering water rolling down the glass of the living room window behind Dani’s head as she says, “—such a good guy and I know he’s trying really hard. That he’s all-in, and—”

There are too many people for such a small space, and Jamie feels like she’s running out of air for a handful of reasons. She stands amongst her colleagues in a patchwork of headsets and tired eyes—Carl yawns behind the camera; Horace shivers as he holds the boom mike over Theo and Dani’s heads.

(“I know that everyone, our family and friends that came to the wedding and even those that didn’t, really want this to work out for us,” says Dani in the talking head that winds up being spliced into this therapy session. “The experts put together what they believe is a perfect match and...It’s a lot of pressure to feel like, if this doesn’t work out, it’ll be our fault. _My_ fault.”)

But there’s no time for any real solutions to be found because they only have so much time, because the cameras have to keep going. Edmund joins them on the couch and Theo points her advice to the both of them and the tension swells in the air, in Jamie’s chest, making her lungs feel choked and 

(“I think the two of you have to decide,” says Theo, “how much you want to put into this. Do you want things to move forward as they have been? Or do you want to give it your all, both of you, and...when we get to decision day, know that you’ve done everything you _could_?”)

Dani is right. There _is_ nothing going on because nothing _can_ go on. Two people in this room are married to one another and, though one of them is Dani, Jamie is so far from being the other.

When they wrap for the day, Dani and Edmund are talking in low, intimate voices against the rainy backdrop of the city beyond the window. They have their heads tilted in, getting closer and closer, and Jamie feels the enormity of the mess she’s stumbled into so willingly as it ripples around her like water in a pond. Like the snag of something on her foot as she tries to swim; the way it pulls her down, pulls her under; and the ease with which her lungs flood, how quickly she stops fighting back.

Sometimes the only choice that can be offered is the one that sinks you.

_______

That night, she winds up at the club again with Trish.

“For what it’s worth, I think she’s making a mistake,” Trish says, because she is the only one brave enough to face the woman her best friend in the world is slowly breaking apart. “And I think she knows that, too.”

“Maybe she does. Maybe _I’m_ the mistake.”

Dani. Her lovely, lovely Dani who stuffed Jamie’s jacket into her dresser rather than giving it back even as she was delivering the harshest blow yet.

“No, Jamie, no. You can’t think like that.”

 _How_ then, Jamie thinks, is she meant to think?

She is sure she doesn’t know. But she does know that she must keep moving forward; it is the law of time, of life, and there is, truly, nothing else for her to do.

_______

Dani does not text her. She does not call or look at Jamie for too long when they are sharing the same general space. Instead, she holds Edmund’s hand and lets him kiss her in front of the cameras. 

On their one-month anniversary, Edmund cooks them a dinner they share by candlelight in the flat they share. She laughs and squeezes his hand and marvels at how far they’ve come together. She is the portrait of the trying wife. Every angle of her speaks of faithful intention. 

Jamie lives with it.

She has to. This was always how it was going to be.

_______

“Things are going…really well,” says Dani on a video call with her mother.

“Oh, good,” says Karen. “I want this to work out for you, baby. I want you to be happy.”

Dani nods. “Me, too,” she says, eyes cast low.

_______

Days and days drift past so quickly. So slowly. All at once. 

Dani sighs and runs a hand through her hair. “I’m just not... _there_ yet,” she says.

“I know you aren’t. I can wait until you are,” says Edmund, says Dani’s husband, says the man who called his wife _a little frigid_ when he’d gone for drinks with his friends earlier that night; whose understanding when it comes to Dani’s not being ready for sex crumbles the moment he is with anyone else. 

Shirley glances over at Jamie from the other side of the bedroom, but Jamie is sure to keep her eyes fixed away. It’s as if the more Dani throws herself into her marriage, the more Shirley tries to clock Jamie’s reaction to every little thing.

Not for the first time, she regrets not running away sooner.

_______

Edmund and Dani sit across from one another at a couples’ wine and painting class. The gray evening light swings around them through the glass walls of the studio and they are surrounded by other couples—older, younger, anywhere in between—laughing and sipping wine and showing one another their work. 

“This is a first,” Edmund says, swiping a long stripe of blue across his canvas. He has a bit of paint on his chin and Dani reaches out to swipe at it with her thumb, making him grin at her; he catches her hand before it retreats, pressing a kiss to her palm, and Jamie tightens her grip on the boom mike. 

“What is?” Dani asks, picking up her paintbrush again. 

“I’ve just never gone on a date like this with a girlfriend.” At the look this gets him, he’s quick to add an, “Or a _wife_.”

Dani laughs. “Neither have I.”

“With a girlfriend or a wife?” Edmund asks, pleased with himself, but Dani doesn’t smile like he’s expecting. The twist of her lips is far closer to a grimace than anything else.

“Neither. And definitely not with a _husband_.”

Edmund’s laughter rumbles deep with his chest. They paint in silence for a few beats, and then he clears his throat. “We haven’t really had that talk before, have we?”

“What talk?”

“The _exes_ talk.”

The night before, their fishbowl of questions to ask one another—gifted by the experts in order to either bring them closer or attempt to stir up drama for the cameras; Jamie is never sure—briefly asked them to talk about their longest relationship. Edmund spoke about a girl from his undergraduate years in America and an amicable break-up inspired by his decision to move overseas. Dani couldn’t think of one. Cited serial first and second dates with no thirds to follow as the main reason. 

As with most of her past, she was unsurprisingly tight-lipped about the whole thing. It’s something that Theo’s been trying to get her to work on by sending more and more personal questions their way every day. So far, there hasn’t been much luck there, though, so perhaps that’s why Edmund is bringing it up again.

Swirling her paintbrush in her cup of water, Dani looks at him curiously. “What is there to talk about?”

Edmund shrugs. “I don’t know. We talked about it some last night.”

Dani hums in the back of her throat. “Yes,” she says on an exhale. “We did.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jamie sees Shirley shift a little, almost nervously. Like she’s anticipating whatever is coming next.

“Any scary exes I should know about?” is the next question and, at Dani’s curious look, Edmund adds: “Was there anyone who made you consider marriage before?”

It is a strange question and a definite departure from most date-talk Jamie has experience filming. There’s an edge of panic to Edmund’s voice as he asked, as if he believes himself to be on the cusp of unraveling some grand mystery that’s forged Dani into the kind of woman who isn’t ready to have sex with him. As if getting her to open up about this is the key to whatever door she’s kept locked to him so far.

But, no such luck. Dani shakes her head. “No,” she says honestly. “There wasn’t.”

“Oh.”

She looks up from the scene she’s painting, lips tilting a bit in amusement. “Why?”

He shrugs without looking up. “Sometimes I wonder if you had this dramatic, spiralling romance before all of this. If that’s why—” but he seems to know enough to cut himself off before he runs that line of thought into the ground.

It’s rather childish reasoning: _she’s been hurt by someone and she has to learn how to trust again_. Jamie thinks that some of it may carry weight, but not anything Edmund is anticipating. 

“No,” Dani says again and she won’t look at him now. “Nothing like that.”

“Okay.”

Clearly, he understands that he has begun to push his luck with this line of questioning. He returns to his painting while Dani takes a rather hardy drink from her wine glass. What frightens Jamie is the set of Dani’s mouth, how she bites her lip and frowns, as if lost in some deep memory that she’s been trying to avoid.

Jamie knows the feeling. There are times when it is hard not to remember the way Dani’s skin feels against her own; the waxy taste of chapstick on her lips or the press of her palms against Jamie’s shoulders; or the harsh curl of _i’m married and we’re friends_ carrying itself crisply on the air, across all that space between the two of them as they stood in that bedroom.

“I’m sorry,” Edmund says after a while. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. We move at your pace, okay? I won’t pressure you to talk about—”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Dani cuts in and it is a physical ache, the flash of her teeth as she smiles at him without conflict. “ _Really_.”

And she’s _right_. That’s the worst part.

 _There’s nothing going on_ , Jamie reminds herself and there isn’t. They don’t talk or text or interact at all, really. The friendship they’d hidden behind before all of this has almost evaporated entirely. Not even enough left for Jamie to grasp with one hand, let alone hang onto with two.

Edmund believes her. He grins. Says: “Okay,” and then, “No big romances here either.”

Dani laughs and when he grabs her hand on the tabletop, she lets him. Squeezes his fingers back and smiles at him like things are simple. Like she’s capable of wanting this without ever wishing for something else. “Good,” she says.

“Except this one, of course,” he throws in next, a charming afterthought that makes Dani laugh again.

She nods, and, “Of course,” like it’s anything but an agreement.

_______

Misery is subjective. The truth is what you make of it.

Jamie cannot love someone who will not let herself be loved.

They answer questions in bed that night that begin with Dani saying her favorite of Edmund’s features is his hair and ends with him giving her an awkward back massage—Dani sitting in between his legs on the mattress—that leaves them both breathless with laughter.

Despite all the good footage, Shirley seems irrationally upset as they pack up for the night. Edmund smiles at Jamie genuinely as he hands over his mike pack, making small talk about the weather while Jamie nods along and smiles. Minds her manners. Keeps her frustration to herself because this is no way to live; how can she be angry at a man who won without contest.

Dani isn’t a prize and, even if she were, Jamie has never been in the running anyway.

“You okay, kid?” asks Horace as they’re loading up the van and he asks this every day. All the time. That’s who he is and they get by on the mutual knowledge that she has not been honest in her answer for well over a month.

But this time—oh, _this_ time—she has run out of reasons to lie.

This time, she shakes her head and focuses on securing their equipment in the trunk. “No,” she says. “Not really.”

He nods, serious. “Yeah. I know.”

If any miracles exist, he cannot offer any, but he does offer her a cigarette to smoke while they wait for the others to finish up and rest his hand on her shoulder for the longest time.

_______

“So, you and Edmund certainly seem cozy these days.”

Leaning her weight against the pool cue she has planted on the floor, Dani blinks at Rebecca for a moment or two. Peter and Edmund are up at the bar, getting more drinks, and this is the first thing Rebecca has said in the last minute that they’ve been alone. Although there’s truth to the comment, Dani’s expression is one of pure bafflement. She has spent the majority of the night leaning into Edmund’s side without a thought, letting him try and help her align her shots and hardly even squirming away from the close proximity of this act. 

But the act of it being brought up has left her disoriented. Or perhaps she’d merely been thinking of other things when Rebecca spoke and now she is trying to catch up enough to answer. 

Finally, she says, “Oh,” and then, “Yeah. We’re...We’re getting on really well lately.”

Rebecca’s lips twist into a bit of a smirk. “Does that mean…?” she begins, but Dani’s eyes grow wild, her expression sliding into something a bit more unhinged as she shakes her head loosely.

“No, no,” she says too quickly. “No, we haven’t...It’s not like we—”

The denial is vigorous enough that it catches Rebecca off guard. She frowns seriously and then reaches out and touches Dani’s arm with her fingertips. “Don’t have an aneurysm,” she jokes. “I was only teasing.”

She wasn’t. That much is clear, but Dani’s breathing calms down a bit when she says this, which means it serves its intended purpose. 

“Right. Yeah. Sorry, I just—”

“It’s okay,” Rebecca says. “I guess that must just be sexual tension I’m picking up on.”

Dani nearly splutters again. “No, we’re just…” she starts, but she never finishes. Instead, she changes tactics: “How are things with Peter?”

“Great!” comes the immediate answer, but then Rebecca’s expression flinches. “Mostly. He has a bit of a jealous streak. And he can be a bit...hot-headed isn’t the right word, but...at least the sex is amazing.”

Dani winces. Jamie does too.

Horace shifts awkwardly, adjusting the boom mike.

“Congratulations?” Dani says, phrasing it as a question they laugh genially, Rebecca leaning into Dani’s shoulder like they’ve always been the best of friends.

The sound of it must reach the men at the bar because they turn, watching their wives for a moment before Peter makes a joke of his own that has them laughing, too. It’s a nice moment, one that Shirley would normally be pleased about, but she’s been getting more and more irritated during their shoots with Dani and Edmund, getting easily frustrated by interactions that should be considered a _good_ thing. She spends half her time staring at Jamie like she’s expecting her to do something drastic like declare her love on camera or start weeping uncontrollably when Edmund kisses Dani. The other half is spent staring Dani down while they film like she thinks she can break her resolve—or her _marriage_ —through the sheer power of will.

Shirley shakes her head and rolls her eyes, turning her attention down to her clipboard like it holds all the answers to her problems. Jamie adjusts the output on Edmund and Peter’s mikes on her mixer, glancing over at where they’re sitting, a second camera capturing their every move. 

“—perfectly fine with Rebecca touching her,” she hears Edmund saying and, when she looks up, he’s got his arms crossed as he leans back against the bar. He’s staring at Dani and Rebecca, who are still a bit hysterical, Rebecca’s head rolling against Dani’s shoulder as she laughs. “But, I swear, she, like, _flinches_ whenever I do it.”

“I don’t know,” Peter says, taking a long drink of his beer. “She seemed fine enough earlier.” He swipes some of the lingering foam from his lips with the back of his hand.

“Yeah, because we’re being filmed right now.”

There’s an edge to his voice that catches Jamie off guard because it’s so unlike how she’s used to him speaking. It’s tenser. Harsher. Makes her hold her breath as she waits for the inevitable second beat.

When it isn’t offered immediately, Peter prods it along. “Whaddya mean?”

Edmund sighs. Scrubs his hand over his face. “It’s like—” he starts, then clears his throat and starts again. “When we’re on camera, we’re fine. We’re _good_ even. She’s practically all over me, but as soon as we’re alone she—” He shakes his head, frowning in a particularly petulant way. “She just shuts down.”

Even from how far away she’s standing, Jamie can see the look in Peter’s eyes—the way he’s leaned forward in that way that never fails to make her think of a predator. Of a vulture, circling the bloodied remains of some poor animal on the side of the road. He almost looks like he’s _enjoying_ what Edmund is saying, which is nearly enough to distract her from the way the confession has her hands trembling. 

“Shuts down how?” Peter asks, looking rather like some rough beast slouching towards his next meal.

Jamie holds her breath and then:

“Like, she lets me touch her and stuff, but it’s like she’s...I don’t know. Somewhere else.”

And Jamie thinks of these last days—this week since that conversation in the bedroom—and all the flames she’s been trying to smother to keep from spreading the fire anywhere else.

 _Somewhere else_.

Peter laughs like this is all a joke to him. It might be. He says, “Confront her about it. Call her on it.”

“You think so?” Edmund asks and Peter shrugs.

“It’s not like it can make things any worse.”

He’s wrong, of course, because things can always get worse.

A few feet away, Rebecca is leaning towards Dani conspiratorially, a smirk painted on her lips. “Tell me you’re at least taking care of _yourself_ ,” she says.

Dani groans good-naturedly and pushes at her shoulders. “Oh my god,” she says. “ _Stop_.”

“Only kidding, only kidding.” Rebecca backs away, holding her hands up in surrender. “But...if _he’s_ not doing it for you, then—”

“I’m fine!” Dani hisses, spinning her wedding ring around her finger. “Okay?”

Rebecca snorts in laughter. “I believe you.”

And, when Dani says, “Good,” her eyes dart over to meet Jamie’s for the first time in what feels like lifetimes.

_______

It’s not her place—it’s _not her place_ —but Jamie lingers on the outskirts for the rest of the double date, waiting for a moment when she can pull Dani aside. So she can warn her, so she can tell her about the conversation between Peter and Edmund or maybe even seek some answers of her own.

Ask: _what do you really want_?

Because it’s evident in the simple way Edmund revolves around Dani that he is nervous of her straying, of her finding something he cannot give her in someone else.

And the biggest tragedy of all is what Jamie already knows, which is this: Dani has already found what she wants, even if she is too afraid to admit it.

_______

In the end, she never gets a chance. Edmund drives them both home alone and Jamie is stuck in a van with Horace and a few other crew members, biting her nails down to the quick as she imagines the scene waiting for them at the flat. 

There’s only another hour planned of the shoot anyway, and with only half the normal crew needed, Jamie takes over Horace’s normal duties so he can go home. It isn’t as if she has anyone waiting for her the way he does. And, really, they just need a few more shots needed of Edmund and Dani existing in the same space as one another. Getting ready for bed. Hopefully laughing, smiling. Getting along.

But the careful harmony they’ve been crafting between them since that visit with Theo pulls apart at the seams just a few minutes after the cameras start rolling. They’re sitting side-by-side on the couch, Dani scrolling through her phone while Edmund is finishing some reading for his classes, when he breaks the silence in half by saying:

“Are you just not attracted to me?”

Dani stares at the screen of her phone for a long moment, thumb hovering above it as her breathing becomes jagged. When she manages to thaw, it’s to say, “What?” in this voice like she’s equal parts startled and uneasy. “Why…” she stops to clear her throat and then finishes with: “Why would you ask me that?”

Edmund slams his book shut on his lap and huffs. “Look,” he begins, “I know we’ve been...doing better and all that—”

“We _were_ , yes,” Dani says, something bitter sliding into her expression.

“—but it’s, like...the moment we’re alone, you can’t stand to be touched by me.”

“I am _not_ —” she says, but she halts and redirects herself. Says, “We’ve _talked_ about this,” instead.

“I know we have. That’s _all_ we’ve done: _talk_.”

He’s getting to his feet now so that he can tower above her, his wife. His wife who is staring up at him like they are strangers again. Like he is someone she might have gone all her life without knowing if he keeps looking at her like that. 

Dani shows her teeth. “What?” she asks. “Do you want me to-to... _sleep_ with you just so you can feel validated?”

And the thing is: Edmund hesitates, toying with his wedding band, and it’s as if he has missed the point of the question entirely; Jamie wants—not for the first time—to reach through the space between them and rip that damned ring right off his finger.

“That’s not what I mean!” Edmund says too late, his voice raised.

Shirley is watching this whole thing with wide-eyed wonder. Russ has one foot stepped forward like he’s worried he’s going to have to step in. Jamie imagines slapping Edmund in the face with the end of the boom mike, but decides against it at the last moment.

“Then what _do_ you mean, Eddie?” Dani demands. “Please enlighten me. Because I’m over here giving this _everything_ I have—even more than I’m comfortable giving most of the time—and it’s still not enough.”

“ _You’ve_ been giving it everything? What about me?” And he has grown ruthless now. Maybe he always was. He slams each of his words straight at his wife and then says, “And I’m getting scraps in return.”

It’s Dani’s turn to get to her feet and she does, if only so he is not the only one with the high ground. “No,” she says, “you’ve been getting everything except for sex, which is apparently all you care about in this marriage.”

“All _I_ care about?” Edmund shakes his head, his face a little red from holding all of this inside for too long. “I’m the one who actually wanted to get married, Dani.”

Dani stands tall and her hands are shaking, so she holds them tightly at her waist and forces herself not to look away from the slumped and fuming form of her husband not three feet away from her. “You don’t know _what_ I want,” she says, “or how _hard_ I am trying to make this marriage work.”

“I know it’s half of how hard I’m trying,” Edmund says, words slanted sharp.

The effect it has is instant: Dani’s nostrils flare as she inhales sharply and her eyes shimmer in the lamplight as she trembles from the effort of holding back her tears. “If that’s what you think, Eddie,” she says, “then this is a really sad day.”

A pause. A brief moment of hesitation. One second where maybe Edmund can take back everything he’s said; where he can apologize and draw Dani into his arms. _Fix_ it. But he doesn’t do that. He doesn’t even try.

He just says, “Yeah. Yeah, it is,” and turns, storming his way out of the apartment and slamming the door shut behind himself.

There is silence once he is gone, so deafening that it rings nearly as loud as the sound of the door. The cameras are still rolling; Shirley does not call for them to stop and Jamie thinks, very suddenly, of that first day in the studio (Dani’s soft hand shaking her own, and, oh, how it makes her sick to think of it now, Dani smiling nervously, afraid of something she was trying so hard to want) and Jamie remembers.

Remembers the press of Dani’s cheek against her own on the plane, of the tears in her eyes as she was forced to reduce everything they feel to nothing— _that is how we got here, it is the cause and the ruin, and everything I’ve ever wanted and I will never_ —because there hadn’t been another way. 

Because when you make a choice, you live with it.

You live with it until you can’t anymore.

Dani’s legs collapse beneath her weight and she falls back onto the couch with a shaky _thump_ as the tears finally fall. Her shoulders shake and she covers her face with her hands, sobbing so audibly that Jamie can feel herself unraveling. 

The air is so thick. Her head is filled with fog. _Why_ are the cameras still rolling?

Dani looks up, vulnerable and lost, and her eyes find Jamie immediately, standing just a few feet away, just off camera. She throws her hands in a gesture of pure helplessness. There is no use pretending not to mean something to one another, apparently, because she doesn’t hesitate. She just says, “What am I supposed to do, Jamie?”

So caught in Dani’s gaze, Jamie can’t breathe for a second. Beside her, Carl turns the camera to catch her for the very first time, standing there with her stupid boom mike and looking nearly as torn apart as Dani does. She ignores him. Refuses to look away from Dani.

“I don’t know,” she says. “You’re doing everything you can.”

Dani sniffs. Gives this broken, little laugh devoid of all humor. “Apparently not.”

And _fuck it_. Jamie doesn’t give a fig about the repercussions. She lowers her boom mike and leans it against the wall so that she can drop to her knee in front of Dani, closer than she’s been in so long. So she can reach out and grab Dani’s arms with her hands. 

“It’s okay,” she says softly. “It’s okay. It’s just a shitty fucking situation.”

Dani collapses into her arms without a second thought, tucking her face into Jamie’s neck and letting Jamie pull her close. As she cries, Jamie turns and looks to Shirley for help. Says, “Cut the cameras,” and then glances at Carl, too. “Come on.”

Carl doesn’t wait for Shirley to agree. He just stops filming and lowers the camera, then his eyes, fixing his gaze somewhere else like he’s trying to give them privacy. Following his lead, the others do the same, all of them looking away save for Shirley, but she doesn’t look angry. She just looks—

It doesn’t matter.

What matters is Dani, crying in Jamie’s arms. Her breath puffing against Jamie’s neck, squeezing her own arms around Jamie’s body and pulling her closer. Jamie rubs circles into her back. Closes her eyes and presses her mouth into Dani’s hair, right near her ear.

Whispers, “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here,” and pretends that both these things are true rather than just one of them.

_______

Edmund doesn’t come back and Dani doesn’t try to call him or text him. Shirley does, but the call rings to voicemail, so they all collectively give up. Call it a day. 

There are things that need to be dealt with and the way Shirley eyes both Dani and Jamie as the crew packs up their things is one of them. It isn’t harsh or bothered, but it is inquisitive. Probing. Fortunately, she seems to understand that there are better times for an interrogation than while Dani is curled into Jamie’s arms on the couch. 

Russ takes Jamie’s things for her without even asking and the unspoken understanding between her and the rest of the crew is that she isn’t going anywhere. She gives Russ a nod in thanks and returns Shirley’s gaze as she promises to call Dani in the morning to check in. It feels like time drags on and on once the cameras have stopped rolling, but, when they are finally alone, Jamie still cannot breathe.

It has nothing to do with her, she decides, and everything to do with the way Dani’s fingers are threaded through her own, hands resting on her lap. And there are so many reasons why Jamie should leave—why she shouldn’t be sitting here, holding Dani in the flat she shares with her husband—but she can’t bring herself to care about any of them when Dani’s thumb strokes across her knuckles like that.

She thinks someone would have to physically tear her away in order to get her to give up what she has right then.

“I’m sorry,” Dani mumbles after a long time, her head rested on Jamie’s shoulder. 

The ease of this closeness is not lost on Jamie. She can’t decide if it’s the anticipation—the dreaming and _wanting_ to be this close for so long—or something else that makes all of it feel like second nature. Like something she’s been doing for years.

“Why are you sorry?” Jamie asks. “Don’t be.”

She thinks she knows even if Dani doesn’t say it aloud. The last week or so has been spent trying to go unnoticed, to slip past Shirley’s radar as discreetly as either of them can manage, and all of that had been shattered in 0.5 seconds. 

It doesn’t matter.

“I just am,” comes Dani’s answer, and Jamie just holds her closer. 

Says, “Don’t be,” and then: “Please.”

And Dani says, “Okay, okay,” and it’s enough for a little while.

There’s a thin edge of worry stuck beneath Jamie’s ribs even as she waits in the hallway for Dani to change. Worry that Edmund will arrive any moment and she’ll be forced away again. But she thinks even that would be worth it if she could just spend one more moment with Dani. Alone.

She sits on the edge of the bed Dani shares with someone else once Dani is tucked beneath the blankets. They are edging around a goodnight because neither of them wants to say those words, and it’s obvious which means that Jamie doesn’t have to apologize for it.

Instead, she says, “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes,” answers Dani, pale and slight. “But I—”

“What?” Jamie interrupts, too worried about the possibilities to wait patiently.

But Dani surprises her. Lifts her hand and cups Jamie’s cheek, brushing her thumb across Jamie’s cheekbone with a look in her eyes that Jamie wishes she could sink into, never to return. She imagines kissing Dani’s fingers, her palm; all the places she’s been dreaming about, and never letting go. Blinks that thought away.

“I don’t want you to go,” says Dani, and the honesty there catches her off guard. Her eyes are shimmering again in the lamplight and she looks young. Young and terrified and in _love_ and the air shivers with the realization of this.

Jamie leans into her touch. “I don’t want to go either.”

There’s an unspoken request in Dani’s next breath: _please stay_. It stays unsaid, though, because then Dani is leaning up and in and kissing Jamie and Jamie is helpless to do anything but let her. To lean down and kiss her back. Hard and desperate and longing, a harsh counterpoint to the heady guilt that’s buzzing in Jamie’s veins.

She doesn’t care. She tells herself that she doesn’t care.

How can she? Dani is kissing her. Dani is slipping her tongue into Jamie’s mouth, flicking it against the roof of her mouth and gasping when Jamie grazes her teeth against it. 

It’s a bad idea. Worse than a bad idea.

She goes to say that. Goes to pull away and apologize, mumbling, “Dani, I—” but Dani shushes her. She kisses the futile, desperate protest away and pulls Jamie down further, guiding her into resting on the bed. 

Kisses her and kisses her and, because Jamie has never wanted anything more in her entire life, she kisses and kisses Dani _back_.

..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, god.
> 
> there are bits of that final fight that are shamelessly inspired by my literal favorite thing in The Office. heads up. 
> 
> just an fyi, all names in this belong to characters either from somewhere in the horror genre (film, mostly) or The Haunting (movie, 1963; actors characters) bc who has time to create three dimensional side characters? but props if you recognize anybody.


	9. Eleventh Hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. i'm brain dead and this is over 20k so. i apologize in advance for the possibility of you closing out whatever app you may read it on and it scrolling all the way back to the top. i think if i split this into two chapters, there may be anarchy.
> 
> notice the new tags? you did? okay? awesome.
> 
> um. so much happens. so much. wow. if there are mistakes, fuck you (kidding maybe)
> 
> good luck?

Later, Jamie won’t be certain what it is that wakes her up. It could be the foreign environment, the unfamiliar mattress beneath her or the way it feels to breathe in a place that she does not belong to. It could be the weather; it’s another rainy, miserable day and the sound of it drumming against the window isn’t exactly quiet. It could be that she’s simply had her fill of sleep and has woken up organically, though she doubts that the case with the pinching pressure pounding against her temples.

But, in those first bleary moments of consciousness, before everything tumbles down, the first thing that she is aware of is the body curled around her own.

At her back is a solid line of warmth, sweet breath brushing against the back of her neck, and it is such an alien experience—waking up in bed with someone—that she’s alert in seconds. The shock of realization has a physical effect: her muscles lock and she begins to pull away, out of the embrace, before memories of the night before wash over her.

Dani’s eyes like the rain clouds just outside the window and the ease with which she’d curled into Jamie’s arms

( _what am I supposed to do jamie_ )

without a thought to the other people in the room. 

Something else: the flick of Dani’s tongue against her own and the way she sighed into every kiss. How carefully she touched Jamie, like she was afraid to leave some sort of lasting impression on her. How she whispered _i’m sorry, i’m sorry, we can’t Jamie_ like this was some secret neither of them had known before. As if Jamie has not known this all along; as if she has ever been the first choice.

As if Jamie would not whisper back _i know i know_ _i’m sorry too me too._

She remembers Dani crying again, for the same or different reasons—Jamie wasn’t sure—and lying beside her, wanting to touch but not daring for fear of caving in again; Dani crying herself to sleep while Jamie wished for something that’s always just a little out of reach. Knowing that this wouldn’t change anything. Doesn’t change anything.

Even with Dani’s forehead to hers. Even with Dani’s fingers brushing through Jamie’s hair and pulling her tighter into every kiss. 

Even now, in the shadowed hush of the early morning.

The arm draped around her hip pulls back quickly. Suddenly. Burnt and surprised and the panic sinking in.

Jamie is still for a very long moment. Behind her, Dani is breathing too harshly for it to be normal. These are the final moments, Jamie realizes, before the rest of the storm overtakes the shore.

There is a decision to make; a stalemate to shatter. One of them is going to have to act first. Speak first. And the Dani she knows—the Dani she _loves_ —is not incendiary. 

But Jamie is, and so she chooses for both of them.

Moving deliberately, she sits up on the bed and swings her legs off the side, frowning when she realizes that she’d fallen asleep with her shoes on. Her clothes feel tight and oppressive, perhaps because the air does, and she knows she needs to go home—get _out_ —for so many reasons, but this one is as good as any.

There’s movement behind her: the rustle of sheets and a gentle intake of air before she feels a careful hand touch the small of her back. Warmth blooms beneath the touch as it slides up the narrow bones of her spine and comes to a stop just below her ribcage.

“Hi,” she hears, a whisper even in the silence.

Jaw muscles clenched, Jamie forces herself to turn around enough to actually _see_ Dani, who is messy hair and bloodshot eyes, lips pinked in the chill of the early hour. “Hey,” she says, stronger than she’d expected.

“You stayed.”

There are rules. There _are,_ there _are_. And without promises and choices Dani won’t make, there always will be.

So she says, “I should go.” It is still early, the room is still veiled in darkness, but _there are rules_. 

She is waiting still for something: some confirmation that this is not just in her head, that she is wanted in return; all the time and not just in the broken moments where they find one another. A sign that the night before and the way Dani pulled her in so _tight_ is the breaking point she’s been waiting for. That this terrible dance they’ve been doing—all the heartache and sorrow of this invisible triangle—has come to a permanent end.

It doesn’t come. 

Triangles are fit to slice on every single side.

“Yeah,” says Dani. “Probably.”

Not: _stay_.

Not: _please_.

Not: _never leave me._

No, never.

“Yeah,” says Jamie.

The hand at her back slides away and the cold replaces it. “Thank you,” says Dani. “I’m so grateful that you...stayed.”

Other things to say, surely, but the truth is: “Anytime. But you know that.”

Dani presses her lips together. She is quiet for a very long time. “I do,” is her eventual response.

It is warm in this bed that is not her own, and the thought of leaving it is abhorrent. Like trekking across the frozen tundra without a fire. She can still taste Dani’s lips against her own, the salt of her tears and the way her body pressed as close as it could get without _becoming_ her. They spent the night in one another’s arms, but it isn’t enough, because Dani is still wearing a wedding ring and somewhere—perhaps right outside this bedroom—she has a husband.

Jamie gets to her feet. She takes a moment to straighten her clothes. She imagines Shirley waiting for her in the living room with a devilish smirk and the entire camera crew behind her. Something in her stomach plummets at the thought. This is hardly some torrid, ghastly love affair but it is closer than Jamie has ever come to one and she wishes every day that it were possible to live in reverse.

Whatever this is, she knows that it cannot exist in the light.

Dani watches her from the bed. She has her bottom lip caught between her teeth. There are tears in her eyes. She is scrounging for something good enough to say and cannot find it.

And Jamie isn’t stupid enough to ask what all of this _means_ , but she is too desperate to leave it like this, so she gets the closest she can manage.

“We need to talk about this, Dani.”

Dani nods. “I know.”

It makes Jamie want to _scream_ because if she knows why can’t they just _talk_ already? Why does it have to be this hard? Why can’t love be a simple, uncomplicated thing, turning frogs into princes and servants into princesses? All it has done is mold Jamie into some frail and bent-winged bird, too broken to even stumble out of the cracking jaw of the beast that quelled her.

“Okay,” she says and she gives herself one brief second to commit the way Dani looks first thing in the morning to memory before leaving the room in a hurry.

She is nearly to the living room when there are footsteps behind her, her favorite voice in the world saying, “Wait.”

And because Jamie is a fool, she stops right where she is standing and waits. 

Dani is there in moments, close enough to touch but not nearly close enough to keep. “I don’t...I hate feeling like this.”

“Like what?” Jamie asks, and there is frustration there in the question because she is so, so tired of this same, old script.

As she always does, Dani falters. “I—” she says and then shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, Dani,” says Jamie. “You do know.”

Dani lifts a hand, as if she is going to touch Jamie, catch her wrist or _hold_ on, but it drops pitch-quick. “Jamie, I—” she begins, but there is no end.

No, never.

Jamie is starting to learn that now. She fixes her expression with her stiffest upper lip. “When you’re ready to talk about this, I’m around.” And then she steps around Dani, into the living room, and out the front door.

_______

“Hey, kid,” says Horace. “Just checkin’ in before call time today.”

Jamie is sitting on her bed in her bathroom, her cell phone on speaker as it rests beside her on the bed. She doesn’t trust her hands to hold anything right now. They are trembling for a lot of reasons, but the most recent one involves scrubbing her skin raw in the hot-steamed shower. 

“Hey,” she returns. Doesn’t know what else to say.

“You doin’ okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“I heard last night was rough.” 

“You did?”

“Yeah, I did. You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“It’s fine. Not a big deal.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a long pause. “Look, I know you like to give me the brush-off and go all devil-may-care when things are screwy, but can you try not to be monosyllabic about it?” says Horace. “Give me something to go off of, kid.”

The heat in her flat kicks on just then, hot air pushing through the ceiling vent and brushing through Jamie’s wet hair. She tilts her head up for a moment, then lowers it. “They got into an argument, that’s all,” she says. “We’ve shot way worse ones than this. Edmund stormed off and we called it a night. That’s all.”

He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You’re glossing over the fact that _you_ were the one to call off the cameras. Don’t think that’s worth mentioning?” There’s a sound behind him somewhere, like something is sizzling. Probably Clara. Cooking him breakfast like she does every day.

Jamie’s lungs rattle on her next inhale. “Not really, no.”

“Because when Russ told me that, I was kinda expecting the story to end with Shirley biting your head clean off.”

“No,” she says. “Nothing like that. Head is still attached.”

“Thank God for that.” Another long pause. Clara’s voice distantly and Horace replying, muffled, like he’s holding his cellphone against his shoulder. “Clara’s packing extra sausage for you. She said you looked too skinny the last time she saw ya’.”

Despite the rain, the sun cracks through the blue-grey clouds. A patch of yellow light drifts in through Jamie’s bedroom window and shines pale on her arm and the side of her face.

“Tell her I said thank you,” she says.

“I will.”

She taps the screen of her phone to check the time. It’s nearing eight o’clock. “Look, I’d better go.” It takes her a moment to get to her feet, and another to trust her trembling hand enough to pick her phone up off the mattress.

“Yeah, yeah,” Horace gruffs. “I’ll see ya’ soon, but...hey.”

Jamie stops where she is. Looks down at the little timer on her screen, ticking away each second of this phone call. “Yeah?”

“You don’t have to tell me. What’s yours stays yours. But I’ve got your back. You say the word and I’m there. Okay, kid?”

“Okay,” she says. There is nothing else to say.

_______

Across the city, Edmund uses the camera provided by the show for video diaries to say his piece. He sits in his car, his curls mussed and his voice rough with exhaustion as he catches the camera up on the aftermath of his night.

Later, this brief confessional will be cut up and laid over footage captured by the crew of him entering the flat slowly, peeking in through the door like he’s expecting an attack. A bouquet of roses in his hand and him stepping into the kitchen to see Dani there already, making breakfast.

A charged moment. Edmund apologizes and hands over the flowers and there are tears in his eyes when she takes them. Tears in hers, too, and the cheesy pop song the editors have chosen will flourish as they hug in the kitchen and reconcile. 

Edmund’s voice, muffled by Dani’s hair, saying, “So, does this mean I can sleep in our bed again tonight? Because my car _wrecked_ my back. I’m tellin’ you.”

And Dani laughs, still crying, and it’ll cut away before anything severe can happen.

That’s the fairytale. The scraps of commitment and vindication Frankenstein’d together to tell a story about two strangers who came together and beat the odds to reach their happily ever after.

There will be no hint of a scandal in any angle or shot captured. Dani and Edmund’s chaotic marriage will be scrubbed to show something more TV-friendly. A clean and affectionate connection. Cool-your-jets and a bit of tough love; quick peck and off to stand side-by-side somewhere else.

No sign of Jamie biting her nails to the quick off camera, or the way Shirley hovers over her shoulder. Horace glancing her way every two minutes to check on her. No Dani glancing somewhere past the cameras, then away. Doing this a dozen times or more. 

No hint of Jamie’s presence in the bedroom the night before when Edmund flops down onto the bed jokingly, trying to make Dani laugh. 

And certainly no indication that the conversation in the hallway outside the flat as Jamie was on her way out ever happened. How she’d been so near collapse as she shut the door behind herself, leaving Dani on the other side, and then she’d nearly bumped into Edmund as she gathered herself together.

How Edmund didn’t even question her presence. So trusting and simple. He has seen Dani talking to Jamie during shoots before and he has made an effort to be friendly with Jamie in a way that gave away his reasoning; it’s the same way he treats Trish or John or Carrie; that blameless _I don’t know you but the woman I’m married to does and so I will try to leave a good impression always_.

Nothing in the footage will give away his: “How much trouble am I in?” 

The way Jamie blinked at him, expecting the worst and receiving it differently than anticipated. No answer to the question, really, but Edmund thanked her for staying and asked for advice, just like he had the day of the wedding.

No one will know that it was Jamie who said: “Roses.”

Who said: “Red ones. She’ll love them.”

Only Edmund will know. Only Jamie. 

And neither of them has cause to tell a soul.

_______

Charlotte Wingrave comes over that morning to check in after their argument. She speaks to them both at the same time and it is just like every other conversation Jamie has filmed with the couples. There is a lot of nodding. A lot of encouragement and advice lined with hope for a better future.

“There’s one place where we’ve...where we’ve always been able to succeed,” says Dani in her talking head after Charlotte leaves, “and that’s...We have so much in common and we’re really good friends, so we’ve decided to kind of...go back to that. Focus on our friendship and _that_ part of our relationship and...go from there.”

She was nodding a lot as she spoke and smiling, too. Either truly optimistic or playing the role spectacularly.

_______

Jamie is already fairly drunk by the time Trish finds at their spot usual at the club they’ve been frequenting. She is lolloped across the long bench seat she’s sitting on and the table in front of her in equal measure and it’s a bit too early for that sort of thing, but there’s no one to care about it.

No one to stop her.

She is _alone_ again and her awareness of this is a tangible thing. It presses heavy on her shoulders and head and eyelids. 

“Trish!” she says excitedly when she catches sight of the other woman. She presses her palms flat on the table in order to lift herself up. “You came!”

Trish frowns as she takes a seat across from her. “I did,” she says, and then: “Oh, babe. Why do you look two seconds from a complete meltdown?”

And maybe it is because Dani let her _leave_ just that morning after everything the night before, or because she didn’t speak to Jamie _once_ during their shoot for the day. Maybe it is the memory of Dani’s arm around her waist as they awoke in the same bed or the fact that Dani hasn’t called or texted or _anything_.

It could be all of these things. It probably is.

But Jamie isn’t sure how to articulate any of that, so she just blows air through her lips with an undignified noise and says, “She won’t talk to me!”

The thing she loves about Trish: she has not been updated on _anything_ within the last few days, and she immediately knows what it is Jamie is trying to say.

“What happened?” she asks.

Jamie is fumbling for her drink straw, but the damned thing is too slippery. She gives up when Trish’s hand covers her on the tabletop. “It’s loud in here!”she yells, a touch too emphatic even over pounding thud of the music. “And sweaty!”

Both of these things are true, but she is suddenly so aware of them that she cannot think about anything else. Her eyes flicker to the dance floor, which is basically just a huddled, writhing mass of bodies having more fun than she’s ever had in her life. 

This is a sad realization. She nearly begins crying, but then Trish squeezes her hand and her attention is brought back to the present moment. 

“What’s going on with you?” says Trish, like she doesn’t know.

Jamie makes that _pfft_ noise again. “Here’s the thing,” she says, still a bit too loud because she is simultaneously leaning forward. What she is about to say next is a secret and she trusts Trish, but she is also nervous about being overheard.

In her current state, Shirley having sent spies to record her every move seems like a very real possibility.

“We kissed again.”

Trish’s pretty features go on a face journey. Jamie watches in earnest delight. 

“Wait,” Trish says once her expression becomes something resembling calm consternation. “You kissed again.”

Jamie hums in response, then realizes Trish probably cannot hear her, so she nods, too. 

“When?” is Trish’s next question.

“Last night.” Jamie leans forward again. “In their _bed_.”

“No way.”

“Yeah-huh.” She goes to take another drink, but Trish pulls her cup away before she can manage it. When she looks up, she is met with a serious frown.

“Jamie, babe, you have to go through this blow-by-blow, okay?” says Trish. “Because I’m freaking out.”

Trying to remember the whole thing is a painful process that Jamie would rather not do for the thousandth time in a twelve-hour span. But she can’t taste her tongue anymore—or maybe never could—and it sort of feels like she’s floating away, which is a scary thought. Explaining things might keep her grounded.

“They had this fight,” she begins. “Bad one. Edmund got all...dick-ish and stormed out and she was just... _crying_ . It was the scariest thing in the world. And I didn’t know what to do so I...I told everybody to just…” She shakes her head, hating the planned phrasing of this next part; takes a moment to fix it. “So the guys all left and I stayed because she was...she was so sad, Trish. She was _so_ sad.” 

Trish nods sympathetically and squeezes Jamie’s hand. “Go on,” she prods gently, so Jamie does.

“And I was gonna leave, but then she...We kissed. A few times.” Even saying it aloud makes her feel crazy. Makes something cold slide down her spine until things are a bit clearer. “And fell asleep and I—I said this morning that we need to talk because we _do_ , Trish. We haven’t talked.”

Another nod. “I know you haven’t.”

“’Cause it’s like she just...doesn’t want to. And I—” She cuts herself off there, throat squeezing a bit at the sides and eyes itchy and wet. She swipes beneath her right eye with her fingers and gives Trish this helpless little smile. A shrug of her shoulders. “It’s my fault. I did this.”

The tremble in her own voice is more sobering than the raw honesty of this confession. Her jaw is trembling, knee bouncing up and down fitfully beneath the table, and that feeling is still lodged deep—the same one that’s been plaguing her for the last five weeks. The one that twisted in her stomach for three hours after they finished filming for the day. She’s an _idiot_. And she did this to herself.

“Jamie,” Trish says. “It is _not_ your fault.”

Jamie nods, forced to wipe her eyes with her fingers again. “Yeah. I think it is.” And she feels even _more_ like an idiot because there are people surrounding them. She is drunk and crying in a club. _Again_.

How rapidly she has become someone that she doesn’t even recognize.

“No, no, _no_.” In an instant, Trish is up from her chair and coming around to sit beside her on the bench seat. She wraps an arm around Jamie’s shoulders, pulling her into a side-hug and shaking her head against the crown of Jamie’s. “It is not your fault.”

Jamie chuckles, wet and humorless. “Then whose fault is it?”

“No one’s. It’s no one’s fault.”

And isn’t that a romantic thought? That desire is so beyond our control that we have no say in the way it burns us down. Jamie cannot let herself believe it, but she is running out of the will to fight and there are different battles she will need to choose later. 

She lets this one go and leans into Trish, trying and trying and failing to stop anticipating that, at any moment, her phone is going to buzz in her pocket.

_______

Owen’s flat is different in person. Jamie has only seen pictures, and only a few at that. It is open and bright, pale with new floorboards and modern furniture. Scattered about on the walls and tables are pictures of him and Hannah from their wedding, their honeymoon, and the little moments in between. Some of them are just Hannah and people Jamie doesn’t recognize. A few of them are Owen and herself throughout the years, so young and unaware of the years to come.

There is one of the two of them from his twenty-fifth birthday, her arm slung around his shoulders and his eyes shut and smile bright. It hangs in the living room, just above the television. She stares at it as the cameras film Hannah and Dani talking softly over tea.

Owen is gone at work. It’s easy to believe he would rather be here. In some of their conversations over the last few weeks, he’s cited his main concern with his marriage as being the way their schedules intertwine. His hours can be late and Hannah works during the day. But they’ve done well so far and the air in their flat is light and fresh. The set of Hannah’s shoulders gives away her calm contentment.

“I feel so blessed to have found him,” she is saying. “I don’t believe I could do this with anyone else.”

“That’s so sweet,” says Dani, her voice genuine and cooing. “You guys really are great together.”

“I would like to think so.”

There is silence for a long while. It is companionable, at least, because Hannah and Dani are so very similar in the quietest of ways; each of them can settle for simple company on quiet evenings like this one. Jamie imagines dinners together—Hannah and Owen; her and Dani—and simply sitting around like this after. Talking idly. Just existing in the same place. Her arm around Dani and Dani leaned into her, hand on her knee because they can touch as easily as breathing in this fantasy. No weight. No resistance.

“Is this going how you thought it would?” Dani asks after some time. She has her hands curled around her mug, blinking in the rising steam from the beverage, and Jamie feels so very, very old in this exact moment.

Hannah smiles. “You know, it isn’t.” Honesty ringing clear like a bell, brushing like wind over the ocean. “It’s so much better than I imagined.”

Dani looks stumped. 

Jamie understands; the worlds crafted in her mind have always cradled her far more gently than reality ever could.

“What about you, dear?” 

And Dani is nothing if she is not willful. If there was ever to be a last man standing, Jamie wouldn’t hesitate placing her money on Dani.

Because just days before

( _what am i supposed to do Jamie_ )

she was cheating on her husband in her marital bed, and now she is bright-eyed and saying, “It’s different! Not like I thought at all and...a lot harder sometimes, but...there have been a lot of good things.”

She doesn’t smile. She simply shows her teeth, and it is so very different.

_______

It takes four days for Shirley to say anything. Four days of uncertainty and the aching longs of self-pity and empty desire. Four days of trying her very hardest to villainize Dani, to turn her into something that Jamie can _blame_ every failing step of the way. Four days of living her life in a room displaced from the one she has been haunting all this time.

Shirley doesn’t smoke, but she’s pretending like she does, holding the cigarette she bummed from Jamie incorrectly and letting it burn. They are standing on the sidewalk outside the studio, where the smokers are typically exiled for their brief stints outside in a chilled sort of quiet.

“I didn’t realize that you and Dani were so close,” is how she decides to break the forced silence between them. 

Jamie holds the smoke in her lungs for a long time. It isn’t until it hurts that she breathes it back out. “We get on, yeah,” she says, thankful for the way smoking can make one seem almost unaffected by their surroundings. 

Detached. Aloof.

“Pretty well, it seemed like.”

If this is a ploy to try and trick her into giving away anything TV-worthy—and it _is_ —it’s a bad one. Shirley is as subtle as a kick to the head and forms headaches the same way.

“Look,” says Jamie, unwilling to tiptoe over the creaking ice any longer, “I shouldn’t have had them stop shooting. That’s not my call. Won’t happen again.”

Shirley bobs her head. “Good, good.” This pseudo-apology is meaningless to her. She is probing for an admission of guilt, but not of this nature. “You, uh...Are you with us for the anniversary dinner tomorrow?”

Jamie has been trying to numb herself to certain aspects of her job, including the mention of inevitable marriage milestones. The stone that clicks against each of her ribs on its way to sink into her stomach tells her she has not been very successful.

“No,” she says. “I’m off tomorrow night.” She knows what’s coming even if Shirley is refusing to meet her eyes. In a blind-ditch effort to remove herself before the next part drops, she drops her cigarette to the sidewalk and grinds it out with her heel. “I’m gonna—”

And she manages to step past Shirley, but that’s as far as she gets before: 

“I’d like you there, if you can manage it.”

That stone sinks even lower. 

This is Shirley-speak for: _be there or else_.

While Jamie has never hated her job more than she has in the past month, she isn’t necessarily looking to go job-hunting any time soon. Which means:

“Right. Yeah.” Tight-lipped smile and a nod of the head. “I’ll be there.”

Where does the trouble come from? In the choices or choosing?

_______

She is trying to live with herself. _Alone_ with herself. So far, it is not going very well.

But this is what it is to make a choice, Jamie thinks.

You live with it over and over again. You live with it until you can’t anymore.

_______

To be clear: the trouble is not in her choice at all.

Hers has always been simple; has always been _Dani_.

The trouble is that whatever choice Dani is living with, it does not include Jamie.

_______

That night, she paces the length of her flat twice and then shatters the silence.

Types out three different versions of what she wants to say and deletes them all.

Types a fourth one and sends it before she chickens out.

It says: _i need to know what this means._

The response is not immediate, but she is not expecting it to be. She paces around some more and then tries sitting instead. Ends up bouncing her knee up and down so hard that she almost knees herself in the chin when she leans down a little. She places her palms flat to her thighs, trying to calm down, and that’s when her phone vibrates.

There isn’t an easy fix to this and no answer can really be correct through and through. But Jamie cannot walk into that anniversary dinner without having _tried_ one more time. 

What she gets for this effort is a simple response, clipped and final. 

_I need time._

Jamie stares at these words for a long time. They burn beneath the darkness of each blink and she is trying to force herself to understand what they mean in Dani’s terms because it feels like she has only had time. Endless streams of it, spilling over the edge of everything she has become. 

Time alone. Time with herself. Time to overthink, to regret, to _wish_ , to put love where it’s not meant to be. To let that love sit there and grow and change and become something else entirely.

Dani needs time. Jamie understands this. But that doesn’t make sleep come any easier.

_______

“To one month,” says Edmund as he holds out his glass.

“To one month,” says Dani, clinking her own glass against his.

Somehow, Edmund continues to smile through his drink and, once he’s lowered his wine glass, he says, “Hard to believe we made it this far.” 

“Yeah,” Dani agrees, but she is somewhere else.

Maybe in the same place Jamie wishes she was. Somewhere very far away where her headset isn’t pinching her ears and her knees aren’t aching. It’s been a long day already, most of the time spent shooting Theo’s talking heads for the entire week, and now she is standing in a restaurant near the top of the goddamned Walkie Talkie building. There are worse places to be, she is sure of it. It’s just that she’s having trouble thinking of any.

She’s always hated the one month anniversary episode, usually because of people like Shirley who cut through the footage of a good evening between two people who care for one another and paste it back together with something they can add suspenseful music to. The year before, the couple she’d been assigned to really had been a good match. There were arguments, certainly, but they were quick and clean and they never left them to settle. Their anniversary dinner had been this sweet affair where one of them cooked dinner for the other, and Jamie can remember it having been a pleasant enough shoot.

And then the season aired and she saw what had been done with that nice dinner; all those long pauses created to build the tension, that suspenseful tune shrilling over footage of the man—a shot of him looking surprised at his present and not, in fact, what it was made to look like in the episode—being reminded of his peanut allergy by his wife, who said something along the lines of, “I’m not like, ‘Oh, my god, this marriage can’t work because I can’t have peanut butter anymore.”

Out of context, the important part was cut out and it seemed like she was truly threatening the stability of her relationship because of a Reese’s cup. 

After all the shit that’s happened between Dani and Edmund already, she can only imagine how this one will turn out in the end. Even when she’s being predictable, Shirley’s decisions can often seemingly come from nowhere at all. These days, she is far from predictable. 

Edmund slurps at his pasta, bent over his plate to keep from spilling sauce down his chin. “It’s nice to just have a date night,” he says, “on our own and all.”

Dani nods and plays delicately with the food on her plate. “Yeah, it is. I feel like I haven’t seen you a lot lately.”

This is a fair assessment. They’ve hardly been able to gather much footage of them together these last few days. He is so often caught up at school or flooded with work that has to be done. Sending Dani over to Hannah’s to have a chat had been a last minute decision made by Shirley and one of the producers that works regularly with Hannah and Owen so that they could have _something_ to show for the week.

“Yeah, and I’m sorry about that. Once these half-term exams are done, I’m all yours.” He grins at her, sauce caught in the corner of his lips.

“Come here,” says Dani, grabbing her napkin and leaning across the table.

“What?”

“You have a bit of—” She captures his chin with her left hand and wipes the sauce away with her right. Once it’s gone, she relaxes back into her seat, leaving Edmund to grin at her in thanks. “All gone.”

“Gee, thanks, _Mom_ ,” he teases. Dani balls up the wrapper of her straw and throws it at him. It bounces off his forehead and lands in the middle of his pasta. “Good shot.”

Dani gives a little bow. “Thank you.”

She seems happy. Jamie is glad for it, even as she wishes it could be her making Dani laugh like that. Even as it prickles in the low of her stomach. She turns her head as Edmund begins talking about something else—a phone call with his parents—and looks somewhere else. Fixes her gaze on the firefly splatter of the city outside the windows. Owen is out there having dinner with Hannah and celebrating their own version of this milestone. She wonders if it’s going as well as this one is, if they’re laughing this much, and decides that it doesn’t matter because it _should_ be. It wouldn’t be as shocking for Owen and Hannah to be getting along because they _always_ do and neither of them is entertaining some side... _thing_ with anyone else.

She’s biased, perhaps, or maybe it’s wishful thinking, but she thinks that no other couple she’s ever been forced to film has acted the way Dani and Edmund do. There are some that are friends, yes, and others who storm out on one another every time they fight. This certainly isn’t the first time one of the husbands has whined about physical intimacy not coming quickly enough. 

But they didn’t give her whiplash. Didn’t flip the marriage on it’s head over and over again so many times that it was impossible to tell which way was up anymore. There were forced smiles and fake laughs, dirty looks or just weary sighs, but Dani and Edmund are a breed of their own. And she knows _why_ and that only serves to make it worse because Dani does too. Even if she won’t admit it.

“So...I have something for you,” says Edmund once they’re done eating. He grabs the bag resting beneath the table and sets it on the table in front of Dani, smiling eagerly.

“Oh,” says Dani, as if truly surprised at the reminder that anniversaries typically involve gift-giving. “You didn’t have to—”

“Sure, I did. Go ahead. Open it.”

She does, parting the tissue paper sticking out of the bag’s mouth with her hand and fishing for its contents. It only takes a second and then she is pulling out a grey and black book from inside. The cover of it has a heart. On the monitor, Jamie watches Carl zoom in to capture it better.

“Oh,” says Dani again, this time because she’s opened it and found pictures inside. “This is…” 

It’s photographs of her and of Edmund in the month they’ve been married. Some of the professional pictures they’d taken after the wedding. Some from the reception and the cake cutting. A few of their first dance, and others, too. A sleepy selfie from the airport on their way to Santorini; a few from the beach, the boat tour. One of Dani on that donkey, grinning cheekily at the camera, behind which was Edmund telling her to smile. 

Jamie remembers all of these moments. She was there for them, too.

But there are others she wasn’t there for: dinner dates and lazy afternoons and all those moments that create a marriage. There is a whole other person captured in these photographs—someone that she’s never met—and there’s a sharp stab of something through the meat of her heart as the two of them flip through them, laughing and talking like the very best of friends. This isn’t the Dani that Jamie knows. This is the Dani that she is when she is with Edmund and, while they are so similar, neither of them can exist in the same moment.

“Thank you,” says Dani once they reach the end and, when Edmund leans in to kiss her, she kisses him back.

Her present to Edmund is:

“Socks? You’re kidding me!”

Dani won’t stop laughing, her cheeks tinged pink as she covers her mouth with her hand. “There’s more, there’s more.”

Edmund fixes her with a look of faux indignation, a smile quirking at the corners of his own lips. He reaches into the gift bag again and pulls out something substantially bigger and heavier. He turns the box in his arms once it’s out, looking it over. “An iron,” he says, shaking his head. He lifts his eyes and fixes Dani with a look that looks a little like mirth. “Because—”

“Your shirts are always so wrinkled,” Dani finishes, still laughing a little. 

“And the socks.” He holds them up to show her the pack of long socks covered in cartoon animals. 

“Because you love socks. Come on, Eddie.”

“I don’t _love_ socks. I just...It saves time, okay?”

Dani gives him a look of disbelief. “It does _not_ , but look how cute they are.” She reaches out and pokes one of the pairs in Edmund’s hand. “Look, there’s little pandas.”

Edmund looks where she’s pointing for a moment. “Okay, those are pretty cute,” he admits.

“I know! So now you can look _kempt_ and wear awesome panda socks.” She is so pleased with herself. Jamie’s heart swells at the sight despite herself. 

Finally, Edmund allows himself to look grateful. “I think you might know me too well.” 

She’s imagining it. Jamie tells herself she’s imagining it.

Dani’s expression flickers. Just briefly. Barely. And then: “I think so, too.”

It’s a good night, by most standards.

Jamie’s mind comes to a traitorous conclusion not moments later:

There has not been one moment all day—any day since that morning _after_ —where Dani has angled herself, no matter where she is, at anyone but her.

Jamie is numb. That’s all she could tell you.

_______

Time passes, but not enough for Dani to be ready. And so she does not talk to Jamie, but she talks to everyone else.

Shirley. Russ. The occasional intern. Horace. Edmund.

All the time, Edmund. They are _friends_ and they are allowed to be and this is what Jamie spends most of her time telling herself. She is still having trouble remembering this.

Things are not perfect. Things never are, but they are better. Dani laughs a lot, smiles more. This is something that Jamie has wanted to see so desperately since the beginning of this whole mess that she almost doesn’t care that it isn’t her causing this shift. Days go by and no one storms out on the other. This is certainly an improvement, though Shirley does not think so, if her rising irritation is anything to go by. 

It feels like Edmund is everywhere at once, grinning at the side of his wife, one hand on her back or in her own at all times. Supportive. Loving. Patient. There’s a date at a roller rink and Edmund is so clumsy that he clings to Dani’s hand the entire time they skate. It’s like they don’t stop laughing. 

When Jamie gets a glimpse of the dailies of it after a night spent alone in her flat, trying to sleep without much luck, she turns on her heel and leaves the editing room just like that. Delegates for once instead of handling everything herself because there is only so much she can ask herself to take and she is already gripping the end of the rope.

The questions sent by the experts for the two of them to answer go by with almost no conflict. Dani reads a question asking Edmund what he thought of her when they first met; he admits to having had no thoughts other than _oh my god_.

This gets a chuckle out of Horace.

Edmund reads one asking Dani what she thinks the biggest strength of their relationship is. Her answer is obvious and predictable. It’s the same thing she’s been saying in every talking head for days.

“I’m repeating myself, I know,” she says, “but I think we have a really good friendship.”

And Edmund is enamored, of course. How could he not be? That curl of blonde hair around her shoulders, the flash of white teeth. How the corners of her mouth crinkle as she smiles. 

He nods like it is beyond him to do so. Says, “Yeah, I think so, too.”

So it goes.

This peace lasts for a little over a week. And then it shatters for more than just them.

_______

“While it is true marriage thrives from physical and emotional intimacy, relationships must also be built on trust. Today, we are asking you to try something a little different.”

It’s here that Dani stops reading, holding the letter from the experts so tightly in her hand that it bends a little. Edmund frowns and watches her silently read the rest, pushing his cup back and forth on the table in front of himself. 

“What is it?” he prods.

Dani sighs in the shape of the word, “Okay,” before reading the rest of the letter. “For the next hour, you will exchange phones, unlocked, with your spouse.”

After, there are a couple more passing moments of silence before she sets the paper down on the table and looks at Edmund fully. There is something brewing in her eyes. Jamie can see it from across the room, and it’s glaring on the monitor she’s standing by. 

Edmund lets out a loud sigh of his own. “Whoa, okay.”

Dani nods. “Yeah.”

There are reasons for this exercise. Jamie has heard them before and she has always thought they made sense, always wondered what the big deal was. Shrugged it off as the sort of task that should be made easy by committing yourself to someone for life. Only someone who had something to hide, she thought, wouldn’t agree to this.

But that was before she was the something that was being hidden.

And she is not the only person coming to this conclusion.

Dani’s eyes, for the first time in so long, lift and flicker across the room until they land on her. Already facing her, like always, the find is an easy one. Perhaps the search is for show. Perhaps she knew right where Jamie was standing all along. They stare at one another across all that distance for an extended moment and, all the while, Jamie reminds herself to breathe evenly. She feels dizzy. Crosses her arms over her chest and locks her knees to lower her chances of keeling over.

“I mean,” says Edmund, “it’s weird, yeah, but I’m...open to it.” He chuckles a little awkwardly, unlocking his phone and sliding it Dani’s way. “There you go.”

Dani breaks eye contact with Jamie only to stare at the table, at his phone. “Eddie,” she says softly.

“Yeah?” he asks, ready and attentive. 

“We’re not doing this.”

She tries to say it lightly, on the air of a joke and maybe it would be convincing if she could manage to look calm about it. Things shift. It’s like Jamie can _feel_ it. A few feet away, Shirley is watching the whole thing with wild eyes.

Edmund frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not gonna go through your phone,” Dani says. “It’s weird.”

“I guess so.” He shrugs. “But it’s really okay.” Nothing to hide, he says it with ease, not quite understanding the issue as it’s being presented to him. 

“I don’t want to go through it. I’m— It’s just...I don’t know. I don’t like this.”

“Why?”

Dani shakes her head and Jamie shifts her weight back and forth, suddenly feeling very hot. Her heart bumps heavy against her chest. 

“Come on,” Edmund tries. “It won’t be that bad. We have to do this.”

“No,” Dani says evenly. “We don’t.”

Edmund rolls his fingers on the tabletop. “Is there something...you don’t want me to see? On your phone?” He pauses for a moment, but it’s not hard to decipher his expression when she doesn’t respond right away.

Dani stares at him for a second. Blinks. “I’m just not comfortable with this. Can’t that be enough?”

“I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.”

“I’m not asking you to understand why I feel that way. I’m asking you to respect that I do.”

The air in the flat is quiet and cool, save for this soft conversation. The lights in the kitchen are on, but the only source of light in the living room at the crew’s back is a lamp that’s over by the couch. Jamie is glad for the shadows, though, when Dani glances up at her and then away.

“If there’s nothing to hide,” says Edmund, “then I don’t see the problem.”

“I just don’t want to do this, okay? I just _don’t_.” Her voice is low and strained. She is trying to keep it steady, trying to keep this from escalating into something she won’t be able to control anymore.

“Is it that you don’t trust me or something? Because—”

“Eddie, I really don’t want to do this right now.”

“Do what? Talk about why you don’t want to give me your phone?”

Dani lets out a shuddery exhale. “I don’t want to fight about this,” she says. “I’m not trying to...I just need a few minutes. Is that okay?”

It’s clear from the slump in Edmund’s shoulders that it is _not_ okay—that he has a dozen other questions building in his mind waiting to be fired off in a moment. He shakes his head and pushes his chair away from the table, resting his elbows on his knees. Exasperated. Tired.

Dani looks much the same. She gets to her feet and stands there for a long moment, chest rising and falling with every harsh, jagged breath. 

“Yeah,” Edmund says. “Yeah. I’ll be here.”

That’s all she needs to leave.

_______

It’s quiet in her absence. Her departure leaves them reeling a bit. Edmund is too sullen and lost in his own thoughts to care much about the crew, who have now been left to film exactly nothing. Shirley is scribbling something frantically on her clipboard.

Jamie pulls her headset down and tries very hard to keep calm. Her chest aches, static thrumming through her veins. She cannot even bring herself to look at Edmund. 

It’s her fault. She is certain of that much.

And the thing is, she really doesn’t care if she’s giving Shirley what she wants. She doesn’t care about how it might look or what it might say. She’s too far gone to pretend she does anymore.

Jamie crosses the apartment in just a few easy strides to reach the door. She does not look back to see if anyone is watching her. It doesn’t matter.

She’s learning that more and more every day.

All that matters is Dani.

_______

Jamie finds her in the stairwell, sitting on the floor with her back against the wall and crying quietly into her hands. The pain that’s been digging into Jamie’s side since that first kiss on the honeymoon throbs sharply at the sight. She wants to be angry at her—wants to be _livid_ —because Dani is so very good at walking away from the things she’s not ready to deal with. 

She wants a lot of things, except she can’t name any of them.

The concrete floor of the stairwell is cold beneath the seat of her jeans. Jamie bends her knees up and drops her head back against the wall. She doesn’t say anything for a very long time because she is so very frightened of drowning the only thing she’s ever wanted any more than she always has.

Dani cries for a while. She isn’t sure how long. Every so often, their shoulders brush from the way she’s trembling, like an earthquake is shattering apart her body bone-by-bone. Jamie thinks she can understand that. She wants to cry, too. Nearly does just from the situation itself: sitting on the floor with the woman she’s having an affair with.

She’s been avoiding that word all this time, but she can’t anymore. It’s the only one that fits.

“Why is it always you, Jamie?” is how Dani breaks the silence. The acoustics in the stairwell are terribly dampening. They practically swallow this gentle question for the way it lingers on the edge of a breath.

Jamie tilts her head upright and allows herself to glance at the woman beside her. Dani isn’t hiding her face anymore; she’s staring forward, blankly, at the railing leading up to the next floor. In the moment like this, she thinks she can allow herself the chance to be honest for once. “You know why, Dani.”

No hesitation then.

Dani nods. “Yeah,” she says. “I do.”

They exist very briefly in a sort of eerie grace. Jamie stretches her legs out and bumps her trainer against Dani’s. It is not an easy silence that falls between them, but it is a peaceful one, each of them aware of understanding the other perfectly. It is not the quiet of two people who have nothing to say to one another, but that of two people who have no idea where to begin. 

Jamie says, “Is it because you don’t trust him?”

Dani tilts her head and meets her eyes. “No,” she says. “It’s because I don’t trust _me_.”

“Okay.”

“I’m scared, Jay.”

“I know you are.”

“He’s my friend.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Yeah.”

“So are you.” 

“I know.”

“Why can’t things just be simple?”

“I think they can be.”

“How?”

Jamie shrugs. “I’ll tell you when I know.”

Dani nods. Simply finding a way to harmonize is enough for now. 

There is more to say. Jamie understands that she is not the only victim here. There are three of them and none of them, no matter how this ends, can come out unscathed. 

“I can’t do this to him,” says Dani. “I can’t be that person.”

“I know,” says Jamie. She does not say that it has already happened, past tense, and that Dani _is_ that person, present tense. There is no use. Dani knows this already. “It’s okay.”

“It isn’t. I married him and I promised to see this through and...you’re supposed t-to...respect the vows you make to someone else.”

“Yeah.” Jamie knocks their shoes together again. “Sometimes love gets in the way of that.” 

This is significant. It is the first time one of them has utilized or weaponized that word, that emotion.

For a moment, Jamie is afraid that she’s gone a step too far. That, in pushing too hard, she’s made Dani retreat again. But then there is a shift. Dani reaches out and finds Jamie’s hand where it is resting on her lap. She takes it into her own and laces their fingers together like it’s the easiest thing she’s ever done.

“Sometimes,” she repeats, but: “Other times, the vows get in the way of love.”

“Yes,” says Jamie. “Yes, sometimes.”

Dani is crying again, but silently this time which is somehow so much worse. The muscles in Jamie’s jaw tighten in response, and she tries to blink away the dampness in her own eyes because, if they both start crying, they might never leave this stairwell at all. 

“Whatever you choose,” she says and it takes everything in her to say this but it is _important_ , so she does. “Whatever you choose. I’ll be there.”

This is a dangerous thing to say—even more dangerous to _mean_ —and she is crippled, yes. Hanging on by a thread. But all she has wanted to do since the moment she met Dani was make sure she never went into the trenches alone. And so, whatever happens, whatever is waiting for them at the end of all things, she will be there.

That’s as much as she can say.

There is not much she can give, but there is always this:

Her pinkie, held out in silent offering. A promise she should not be making, but she has already made so many and if Dani is going to stand by her vows, then Jamie will not let her do it alone.

A quiet sob fills the air and it is not her own. Jamie cannot look at Dani for fear that she will collapse from it. A moment later, Dani’s pinkie links with her own. Tightly. Firmly. Meaning it.

Jamie turns her head and presses her lips to the back of Dani’s fingers. 

This is what she can give.

Dani is not the one to pull away and, when Jamie gets to her feet and offers her hand, she takes it.

This is what both of them can give.

_______

Jamie enters first, giving Dani a moment to compose herself, and Shirley is waiting for her at the door.

“Is she coming?” she asks, already knowing where it is Jamie went. Why maybe, too.

“Yeah. She is.”

Edmund hears her from the table. He is sitting up now, looking less defeated and much more determined than he had when she left. His eyes track her as she crosses the room, so she keeps her head down. Slips her headset back on and goes to stand by the monitor again, Shirley close behind.

The door opens again a moment later and then Dani is there, coming in slowly. Edmund gets to his feet at once and crosses the space from the kitchen to the living room in order to get to her. The camera crew shifts in order to capture it.

“Dani, I’m so sorry,” he says immediately, and Dani is not expecting this, that much is clear from the way she looks at him. “I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I...I shouldn’t have left. I was just—”

“No,” Edmund cuts in. “I shouldn’t have pressured you. We always say that we’re friends first, before anything else, and I would never...I would never get pissed off at a friend if they didn’t let me go through their phone.”

He rubs at the back of his neck, looking sheepish.

Dani is shell shocked. Surely this side of Edmund has always existed—even Jamie is certain they’ve all seen it before—but it is a far cry from the man he has been in their past arguments. 

“I...I appreciate that,” says Dani.

“And I just...I want you to know that I trust you. I don’t need to...dig through your stuff to know that we’re in this together.”

Jamie thinks of the tap of Dani’s shoe against her own. The soft skin of Dani’s knuckles beneath her lips. She makes herself watch as Dani says, “Yeah. We are.”

_______

Decision Day looms nearer and nearer and Dani and Edmund keep trying.

It hurts to watch. There is no use in pretending this is not true, but Jamie is used to the pain by now. She tells herself that she is doing the right thing in stepping back, because Dani is the only one who can make this decision. 

She tells herself that nothing worthwhile has ever been easy.

Dani and Edmund go to an arcade and play skeeball like children who’ve never known pain. Never had a reason to be afraid. Edmund speaks genuinely about wanting this to work. To _last_. He does not pressure or push Dani into giving anymore than she does on her own. He seems to have learned that lesson. Dani’s eyes are bloodshot most of the time and, because Jamie’s are too, it’s no secret why. Neither of them is doing very well with any part of this.

Dani talks about trying. About seeing this through. Both her and Edmund mention their pending, life-altering decision individually, but the cameras never capture them talking about it with one another. She does not ignore Jamie anymore, but things are still careful. Tentative. They text a few times, but less so than they did before and it’s never stated but Jamie knows it is because of the phone fiasco.

Still, it is more than she had and, if she squints, she can almost pretend that everything is simple and easy.

Shirley is single-minded in her focus. She goes back and forth between ignoring Jamie entirely and staring her down. More than once, Jamie is certain she catches one of the cameras pointed her way and she knows that she should be worried about this—about the fact that Shirley quite suddenly seems to know something that Jamie _doesn’t_ —but she is too busy trying to become someone who can handle all of this.

Trish is around. Always. For Dani, too. When she visits their flat one night when Edmund is gone, it feels strange—like it’s a secret trying to burst out from her skin—to be in the same room as her only confidante, watching her play the same role for Dani.

“Have you guys talked about it?” Trish asks because Decision Day is all anyone can think of in the final two weeks. 

“No,” says Dani. She is sullen and shrunken in on herself. Trish has not said a word about it, but it’s better that way. “No, we haven’t.”

“Do you know which way you’re leaning?” 

A shrug. “We’ve been doing pretty well lately. But I can’t answer for him.”

“I wasn’t asking about him,” says Trish. “I was asking about you.”

They are having coffee in a shop near the school Dani teaches at. Jamie is staring out at the birds hopping up and down the avenue, searching for food, because it is easier than watching this conversation unfold.

“Oh,” says Dani. “I mean...we’ve been doing well, so I…”

“Yeah, you said that.”

The sunlight flickers against the rosy dusting of Dani’s cheek. Trish knows. She knows all of it and this is the moment when Dani realizes that there will be no hiding from it her. 

_This_ , Jamie imagines her realizing, **_this_ ** _is what’s been going on with Trish_.

And, well.

A truth for a truth: “I’m just taking it one day at a time.” 

Trish nods. Takes a sip of her coffee. “Sometimes,” she says, “that’s all you can do.”

_______

Jamie is at home on a quiet night off when Dani texts her, and Jamie’s heart bites her throat for exactly as long as it takes for her to unlock her phone because she is imagining the worst. But:

 **[6:43 PM** ] _Oh my god. So you know how Peter is kind of...yeah...right?_

Before Jamie can respond or even decipher this, another message comes through.

 **[6:43 PM** ] _We’re in the middle of this group date and he just stormed off._

[ **6:43 PM** ] _I’m not kidding._

They’ve spoken about Peter before. A few times actually. Owen has talked about him too. The general consensus from anyone, crew or otherwise, that’s spent time with him has basically been that he makes everyone uncomfortable. There is a terrible possessiveness with which he treats Rebecca that makes Jamie’s skin crawl. She’s heard through the proverbial grapevine that most of the shoots with the two of them end with him yelling and Rebecca crying. 

So, hearing that he’s stormed off in the baking class the couples are in tonight is not necessarily a surprise.

_what happened?_

Dani responds almost immediately.

[ **6:44 PM** ] _So we’re making cupcakes right? And Hannah and Owen were being all cute and competitive_

[ **6:44 PM** ] _And Owen was bragging abt his batter like “oh its already delicious” or whatever so Hannah tried it and was like “not as good as mine”_

[ **6:44 PM** ] _So Owen made me and Eddie try his and it was good but like it was batter so he asked Peter and Rebecca to try it_

[ **6:45 PM** ] _But Peter said no bc he’s all_ **😑** _so Rebecca tried it and then Peter freaked out bc she tried it from the spoon Owen was holding and he started like_

[ **6:45 PM** ] _This whisper war at their station and then he just stormed off like_

Jamie blinks. Reads it twice to try and understand before she feels qualified enough to answer.

_wait. because she licked a spoon?_

[ **6:46 PM** ] _Yes!_

[ **6:46 PM** ] _Like it’s some notoriously phallic symbol and it was the equivalent of her having sex with Owen right there_

 _please don’t ever mention Owen and sex in the same sentence,_ Jamie types with a wince. _or use the word phallic_

[ **6:47 PM** ] _Sorry lol_

[ **6:48 PM** ] _But anyway now I’m just freaking out_

It’s funny; her job tends to involve seeing the worst of people, and it’s never as heightened as it is leading up to Decision Day, but Peter is in a league of his own. 

Of all the seasons to have a conflict of interest keeping her away from filming a group date, it had to be the one with Peter fucking Quint.

 _is Rebecca still there?_ she asks, trying to imagine what that might look like.

[ **6:50 PM** ] _Yeah, but now we’re all just waiting for our cupcakes to be done and it’s so weird_

 _i bet_ , Jamie types. 

[ **6:50 PM** ] _I really wish you were here for this_

Not for the first time, Jamie lets herself consider the unspoken reason why Dani did not want Edmund to go through her phone. She rereads the conversation—Dani’s messages and her responses—trying to see if there are other places where you can see right through it. 

Maybe, she thinks. If Edmund could connect the dots. And maybe he wouldn’t even need to do that if he saw this last message. Maybe all this time spent “working on their friendship” has made it so he knows Dani, too, and that’s what she was really afraid of.

Jamie is too afraid to respond, too worried that anything she says will tilt the scales unevenly. That it’ll be playing dirty—dirtier than she’s already been playing.

But, for all that Dani is afraid of, this must not be one of them.

[ **6:52 PM** ] _I really wish you were here_

And Jamie is trying to be more honest about these things.

Her next message is: _i really wish I was, too_.

_______

Another truth: Edmund’s own method for moving forward is very different.

_______

There’s a lunch with Arthur Lloyd and the men. There always is this close to the end. Shirley moves Jamie to cover it instead of the lunch between Theo and the women. This decision carries with it neither surprise nor mystery.

Jamie does not complain or ask why filming Owen just yesterday was an issue, but is not today. She just does her job.

Every expert’s methodology looks different. Charlotte tends to focus on intimacy. The exercises and questions she contributes run along this theme, as does her usual advice. In her talking heads, she is usually the one talking about the danger of “shutting down” too early on in the relationship. 

Theo has a thing about effort and communication. She is the one who pushes the idea that there is no problem in a marriage that cannot be discussed. Often, she is the one who tries to remind the couples that their actions speak just as loudly as their words.

But Arthur is different. He is big on the “ideals” of marriage. He likes to talk about the future, to tell the couples that they need to plan for what will come after the experiment and to stop thinking about one another as “strangers” from the moment they’ve met on.

So when he begins talking about “marriage goals” and “five-year plans” halfway through the meal, Jamie is completely unsurprised. The same cannot be said for Edmund, though, who goes from zero to a meteor hurtling towards earth in about two seconds.

It’s kind of impressive.

“You’ll need to sit down with your wives and talk about what it is you want to work towards in your marriage,” Arthur is saying, and Owen is nodding in gentle agreement. “You’re not just working on a marriage for these eight weeks. You need to be looking toward the future and setting goals. Be it six-month goals or ten-year goals or whatever it is you two need.”

Peter is sullen and won’t look at anyone directly. Apparently, whatever fight had been begun in the baking class the night before did not resolve easily. Jamie tries not to look at him because, every time she does, she remembers the emoji Dani used to describe that vacant, detached expression of his and has to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

“What if talking about our five-year goal will just lead to a fight?” Edmund asks, seemingly out of nowhere.

Owen makes that face of his and glances nervously at the camera. Peter actually looks interested for once.

“What do you mean?” says Arthur.

Edmund shrugs. “I mean, we’ve talked about what we want to do in the future, and…Like I’ve said that I want to, eventually, move back to America because that’s where my family is and where I have my foundation and all of that.”

Arthur nods. “Right.”

“But Dani has said that she doesn’t see herself moving back to America anytime soon or…or at all. And honestly, that scares the hell out of me because if we’re starting a family or-or anything like that, I don’t wanna have to forfeit or fight over my kids just because she doesn’t want to to leave and I do. Like, the fact that she basically said that she doesn’t wanna move back kinda reads as like...it could be a deal-breaker for us and I—”

He doesn’t finish.

All of this is said in a sort of long-winded rush, so quickly that Jamie’s lungs barely have time to catch on the mention of Edmund and Dani’s hypothetical future children.

“Jesus,” Russ whispers, and Jamie feels it too.

“Okay, alright,” Arthur says, holding a hand up to keep Edmund from continuing. “Just take a moment, okay?” 

They do.

Owen cracks his knuckles and then winces because it’s too loud and he’s already so visually uncomfortable. This does nothing to help.

“I just don’t want to do that,” Edmund throws in, emboldened by the shattered silence.

Arthur nods. “Right, okay. I can see why that would be worrying.” He shifts forward, changing his relaxed posture into something more business-like. “And that’s something you’ll need to talk about and figure out. But I don’t want you to focus on something that may or may not be an issue when you’re not even two months into your marriage.”

“I know that, I know that.” He is flustered now, pink-cheeked and sitting up to make himself taller. “But that’s just not something I want to do. I don’t want to fight over staying here when I don’t want that.”

Arthur’s advice is going right through him.

Peter shakes his head and removes himself from the conversation, pulling his phone out and fiddling with it idly. 

“And I don’t want you to sabotage yourself or your marriage when you haven’t had a chance to really grow together yet.”

If Theo were here, she would probably just tell Edmund that he’s being ridiculous. That he’s fishing for an easy way out and then she would make him get to the root of _why_ he wants out. Why he’s looking for reasons that he and Dani just won’t work.

Arthur isn’t good at that, though. The next ten minutes are spent with him reiterating the same things over and over again until Edmund, eventually, gives up or else gets tired of arguing.

He is heartbroken and Jamie looks at him and she remembers _i can’t hurt him_ and _i can’t be that person_ ; she thinks _please let me make the right choice_ and _please let there be a right choice._

In his talking head, Edmund says that a marriage cannot last if the two people who live within it want something other than each other.

For the first time, Jamie and Edmund understand the same things to be true.

_______

“She’s real. I swear.”

“Yep. I’m sure she is.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“I did _not_ make her up.”

“Funny how you said that all on your own.”

“Why would I make this up, Jamie?”

“Because you’re trying to distract me.”

“Why would I need to distract you?”

“Maybe so I don’t get really drunk and start crying like I do every other night. So now you’ve made up this ‘insanely hot’ girl who you met and had a whirlwind love affair with just moments before my arrival.”

“First off, don’t use air quotes, babe. Not a good look on you. Secondly, it was not a whirlwind love affair. We just danced a little.” A pause. “Okay, a _lot_ and I asked if she wanted a drink and she said yes and then disappeared on our way back to the bar.”

Jamie stares at Trish, contemplative. The fingers she has curled around her drink are numbed solid—a feeling that she’s hoping will spread throughout the rest of her as soon as possible. “Maybe she was a ghost,” she offers. “Or maybe she saw me here and got intimidated.”

Trish rolls her eyes. “Yes,” she says. “Because you’re so intimidating.”

“Only to ghosts.”

“You drive me crazy.”

“Then why do you spend so much of your time scraping me off the pavement?” Her phone buzzes in her pocket and she takes a moment to fish it out, and then another moment to set her drink aside and respond to the message. When she looks back up, Trish is watching her with a raised eyebrow. “What?”

“ _That’s_ why.” Trish gestures to the phone in Jamie’s hands. “I keep fixing you up because you keep breaking yourself and you never learn.”

It’s been another long day in a series of very long days and Jamie has been working on hiding any hint of weakness. Talking about Dani or Edmund or anything to do with her job or romantic life was not the goal of the night. The goal was to simply meet up with Trish, just to get out and somewhere else. Somewhere _away_.

But teasing Trish over this mysterious woman she met just before Jamie arrived has taken priority. They have not been friends long, but Jamie has learned a lot about Trish in the time that they’ve known one another, and the look she’s wearing—flustered and baffled and half-in love already—is brand new and wonderfully unexpected.

“Did you at least get her name?” she asks, trying a redirection.

Trish’s face falls. “No,” she admits. “I was going to! Over that drink, but now…” She trails off and looks over her shoulder, back out at the people milling around just beyond the bubble of their conversation. 

Jamie turns a little on the stool she’s claimed so she can look, too. “What does she look like?” 

“Tall,” Trish says. “Dark hair. _Gorgeous_.”

“Aye aye.” 

She squints into the poor lighting of the club, but it barely makes a difference and, anyway, her experience since she began frequenting this place has been that the majority of its patrons are men. Specifically, white men. From where she’s at, she spots no one who fits that description. 

Her phone buzzes again. 

[ **9:03 PM** ] _John and Carrie are dragging me out_

[ **9:03 PM** ] _Any chance you’d call me with a fake emergency to get me out of it?_

 _not sure they’d buy that tbh_ , Jamie types back and watches the read receipt pop up with that weird twisting feeling in her chest.

It’s a bit of a departure from their initial conversation regarding Dani’s lunch with Theo and the others. Apparently, Rebecca’s pinky is broken and, when hard-pressed to answer how it happened by a very worried Hannah, she’d explained it as a “sex accident.”

The story goes that Peter accidentally kneeled on it on their bed, too lost in the moment to realize what he’d done. And now poor Rebecca’s finger is in a splint. And despite her having laughed it off, the others are concerned. _Jamie_ is concerned. Her and Dani had been talking about love and possession and the way they are sometimes mistaken for one another.

And Jamie’s been thinking of Edmund earlier that day and that conversation with Arthur. That look in his eyes and the set of his shoulders. How he’d hurred off after they’d finished shooting, not lingering even long enough to give a proper goodbye to the others. 

Now, though, they are—

“Hey, you’re supposed to be helping me,” Trish says, having snapped her fingers in front of Jamie’s phone in order to get her attention. “You know, normally in an affair, the active participants at least _try_ to be subtle.”

That word catches, like it always does. Stings the same way.

She doesn’t have any good response for that, so she settles for no response at all. 

A hand rests on her knee then and Trish is frowning when Jamie looks at her. “I’m sorry,” she says. “That wasn’t fair.”

“It’s—” Jamie begins, but Trish cuts her off.

“No, it’s not.” 

And maybe it was unfair, maybe it hurt, but Trish has a point and Jamie is a _fool_ (she is she is she _is_ ) and she is going to have to live with herself even if no one else does. She may as well call it exactly what it is.

She pushes forward. “Let’s just find your girl. Just because I’m miserable doesn’t mean you have to be.”

Her phone buzzes again and she is thinking of the word _affair_ and _adultery_ ; imagines a blazing scarlet _A_ on her chest, on Dani’s. She is thinking of her life in terms of the sins she has committed and her head is spinning and maybe that is why she doesn’t understand what Dani’s message means at first.

She reads it twice. Looks over at Trish, but Trish is too busy looking out at the dance floor wistfully. Slowly, she types back a _yes?_ and sends it, watching it appear blue beneath Dani’s white: 

_Are you out with Trish?_

There isn’t much time after that to be confused. Because John and Carrie descend in a mess of cheerful greetings and sloppy hugs—reintroductions on Jamie’s behalf—and Dani is standing there, just to the side, husbandless and cameraless and not looking away.

_______

This is a bad idea.

“We finally managed to drag the old ball and chain out,” John brags, throwing his arm around Dani’s shoulders.

“That’s not what that phrase means, John,” says Carrie and John just rolls his eyes.

“I see that,” says Trish, eyes darting to Jamie and then to Dani, where they stay. “You hate clubs.” She reaches out as she speaks, pulling Dani away from John so that she can hug her instead. When she pulls away, she says, “Where’s that husband of yours?”

Dani’s jaw clenches. “At home. He said he wasn’t feeling well.”

“That’s too bad.”

But it’s clear from her tone that it really isn’t.

“Oh my god,” says John next, a treacherous smirk spreading across his lips. He points between Jamie and Trish. “Trish, you are _not_ sleeping with the sound girl.” 

Jamie splutters and Dani takes this opportunity to lean over the bar and get the attention of the bartender. “Sound girl,” she repeats, as if this is the most offensive part of what he’s just said.

“Sorry,” he offers, insincere in every way.

“No.” Trish rolls her eyes at him. “I’m capable of being friends with hot women and not sleeping with them.”

If Jamie had been silly enough to take another drink, she might have choked again. “What?” she asks, but she is thoroughly ignored.

“Sure you are.” The next noise John makes is one of pain as Trish rolls up on her tiptoes and flicks him in the nose. “You are an aggressive woman.”

Trish hums in agreement and then slings her arm around Jamie’s neck, pulling her close enough to speak without being overheard. “I’m so sorry, babe.”

“It’s okay,” Jamie lies, shaking her head.

“It isn’t. Do you want me to get you out of here?”

Another head shake. “No, it’s...I’m fine, really.” She’s been through these same exact steps enough times to know that trying to escape will probably just result with trapping herself further.

Trish nods, frowning in concentration. “Do you want me to get these two goons to leave you guys alone?” she asks. “What do you need from me?”

And she’s so sincere, so considerate, that Jamie could weep. “I’m okay,” she says. “It’s fine.” 

At the bar, Dani is receiving her drink, smiling in thanks to the handsome bartender who gives her a wink as she draws away. As soon as he is gone, that smile slips away and something else takes its place. Something that Jamie knows all too well from the rattle of her own bones and the tremor in her hands.

Their eyes meet and this is a bad idea.

What, Jamie thinks, has she done lately that isn’t?

_______

This is what happens: Dani very rapidly becomes the center of attention. There are plenty of reasons for this and almost all of them have to do with her being married. She is the first of her friends to fall into something so constitutional and John and Carrie have questions, want to know everything. They talk with the exuberance of catching up after years and years rather than just a few weeks. 

Dani has changed, they are sure of it. So they do the interrogative equivalent of inspecting her from head to toe in order to document every little shift. They want to know how they spend their time, if she _feels_ any different now that she’s legally wed. They want to know what marriage is like in front of cameras, about the things the other couples are going through.

They want to know about Edmund.

He is the talk of the night. The chatter about him seems to never end.

Jamie shrinks into Trish’s side and contemplates slipping away for about thirty minutes, while she makes her way through the round of drinks John has bought in celebration. There is little for her here save for Dani, and she has already sliced off enough of herself for one night. Trish is supportive. She sends Jamie these sorry little looks like she would raze the damned television studio to the ground with her bare hands if it were possible.

She is an ally and Jamie is thankful for this, but Trish is Dani’s ally, too, and so she wants very badly to leave. But she is selfish and so she stays as long as she can, soaking in every stolen glance, every lovely bend of Dani’s laugh, because they are moving closer and closer to Decision Day and she is still not sure where they stand.

Dani is a good actress, shrugging off the enormity of the decision to come with an easy roll of her shoulders, but Jamie keeps thinking of the stairwell and what came after. How Dani had been

( _livid_ )

solid like

( _the sea_ )

she always tries to be in front of the cameras.

Jamie drinks and watches the woman she loves talk about her husband and tears herself to the joists over and over again.

The alcohol shoots straight to her head, slides through her bones. Not enough to kill her, no. But enough to numb her, at least for the moment.

_______

Carrie is complaining about some dating app or another when Jamie slips away. She gives Trish a significant look, mumbles something about going for a smoke, and then she is pushing her way through the crowd and to the nearest exit.

The cold air bursts against her fevered skin the moment she steps out into the short alleyway. It slips beneath the collar of her shirt, sliding down her chest and back; knotting itself into her humidity-wrecked hair and making everything seem that much more real. 

She fumbles in her pockets for a cigarette and has just managed to light one when there’s a great, metallic _creak_ and the door to the club opens up again. Dani steps out and the door thuds closed behind her. There is no use in acting surprised anymore.

A car honks nearby. Inside, the music thumps away and Jamie has given up on greetings for the time being. Tight irritation bubbles in her chest and she’s not sure if it’s because she wants to be alone or because of everything else.

“Thought you might be running away,” Dani says. She does not sound like herself. Look like herself either. 

“Not yet.” She takes a long pull of her cigarette, posture stiffening as Dani comes up to lean against the wall beside her. The rough bricks catch against her hair as she turns her head a little. “Decided to leave the posse behind?”

“They’re dancing,” comes the explanation. “Trish is trying to find some woman she—”

“Danced with earlier, yeah,” Jamie finishes. “I don’t think she exists.”

Dani laughs lightly. “Why is that?” She gets a shrug in response. Nothing more. A change of tactics is in order. “I knew you were friends, but it was kind of weird seeing you out together.”

Jamie, who is still wracked with longing, doesn’t think she can handle letting Dani split her open again, straight to spine. “Don’t,” she says softly. 

She’s expecting Dani to play dumb, but she doesn’t. Instead, she mumbles a quiet, “Sorry.”

Despite all of the noises surrounding them—the drip of old rainwater as it slides down the fire escape from the building across from them; the cars out on the street; the buzzing of humanity existing in such close quarters pressing in on them—the silence is deafening. It’s just the two of them. Doing what they always do when it is just the two of them. 

“I’m sorry that we haven’t...talked,” says Dani, and maybe some things are different.

“It’s okay,” says Jamie.

It isn’t, of course, but if there is a right time or place to talk about this, they won’t find it here.

Dani shakes her head. “No, it isn’t. I’m...You’ve been so...patient and I’ve just been—” She pauses, and then, “I just want to be better than this.”

“Better than what?” Jamie asks, almost doesn’t because she’s tired.

Because she knows what Dani tells the camera, what she sells to Shirley and Edmund every day, but she does not know the truth. Has not ever been brave enough to ask for it, really.

There’s a snap between them. It isn’t audible and it doesn’t exist in any sort of reality, so Jamie doesn’t notice it until Dani speaks again.

“I don’t know,” Dani says with feeling. Emotion laving at the edge of the words. That dreadful answer again. Always. “Between my mother and Shirley and the experts and _Edmund_ , it’s like I’m in the wrong no matter what I try.”

Jamie stills. This isn’t how she expected the conversation to go. She drops her cigarette and stomps it out with the toe of her sneaker, standing up a little straighter.

“And Edmund...he’s a good guy. A good friend. A...a good husband,” Dani continues.

“When he remembers to be,” Jamie murmurs.

The frustration there is something she has not really voiced before, but there is no scathing look at the honesty. Dani drops her gaze to the ground.

“But he’s struggling with this—”

“And pretending he’s the only one.”

“—and when he’s...when we’re being friends and we’re... _honest_ with each other, things are good. But then...And then everything blends together and we try to unpick the two and it’s like we _can’t_ and I want to fix this. With him.” A pregnant pause as Dani shifts a little.“With _you_. And I really, really want for things to be easy.”

There is silence again, save for the sound of their breathing, and Dani had not looked at Jamie once as she spoke, as if meeting Jamie’s eyes might have been enough to stop her in her tracks. 

Those rules again. They are still there. Even here in this alleyway, so far away from the cameras, in this tiny orbit filled with only them. It never ends.

Jamie knows this, so she doesn’t say what she really wants to say. What she’s been winding up all this time, waiting for Dani to finally _see_ , because maybe then she’d choose her and not him. Maybe then they could fix it. But it’s a fantasy really, and a distant one at that.

What she says:

“I know what that feels like.”

Dani looks at her finally, frowning like she cannot fathom what it is Jamie’s just admitted to. She shakes her head, looks away and says: “If only it worked like that.”

And, here’s the thing: Jamie has _tried._ She has tried and she has tried to keep her distance and tried not to love her, oh how she has tried and wished to be anyone else. Anywhere else. What she wouldn’t do to make the clock mark time in reverse so that she could change it. Fix it. Go back to that person she was before all of this, the one that stood in the door of that hotel garden and begged for Dani to just be _honest_

( _for the first time, oh the first, but not the last, never never_ ) 

so she can tell her what’s coming. What to prepare herself for.

How endless and rotting and _covetous_ that desire within her will become; how this whole thing will rip them all into tatters until they no longer resemble anyone they’ve ever been.

“It _was_ that easy,” Jamie says. “It was. At the beginning of all of this...before the wedding. Before you married him.”

Dani is very, very still. Jamie pushes away from the wall and steps away from her, wants to run away already, but she is angry and tired and she needs to say this.

“Jamie, it wasn’t—” Dani begins, the start of another dismissal, but Jamie turns around before she can finish it. 

“No,” she bites. “No. It was. It could have been, but you— You can’t just...You _do_ know, Dani. You say you don’t, but you know what I mean and you always have. You knew it when you sent for me before that fucking ceremony and you know it now. You’ve known this entire time what it is that we’re doing. What _you’re_ doing and you’ve done it anyway.” 

This is something: Dani just standing there; neither of them breathing the right way. And it is regret boiling in Jamie’s chest, low and curdling. It is _frustration_ and _hurt_ that snags her breath into a quiet sob because:

“And I know that I am...that I let this happen. That I took just as much, but...I have never pretended that this was anything other than what it is.”

“You could have said something, too,” Dani says, and it is clear from the tremble in her shoulders as she takes a single step forward that they cannot go back from this. “Before I married him, when we were...I didn’t know if it was _real_ and I was terrified and...You could have said it directly instead just...of edging around it and walking away.”

“It wasn’t my _place_ . It _isn’t_. I never wanted to— And what would I have said?” She makes a helpless little gesture with her hands, hating the way they shake as she does. “‘Hey, don’t marry some stranger. Marry me instead’?”

It is late and it is dark, and the street lamps don’t quite reach where they’re standing, but Jamie can see Dani anyway. Can see that she’s trembling, crying, feeling this too.

Dani doesn’t seem to have a response for that. Jamie hadn’t expected her to. Not really.

“It wouldn’t have mattered, Dani. We’d still be standing right here. You’d be married to Edmund and I would still be watching from the sidelines, pretending that I didn’t—”

But, no. She stops. Cuts herself off at the last second, but she knows that it doesn’t matter. Can tell from the broken way Dani is looking at her that they both understand what it is she’d been about to say.

And then Dani says, “That you didn’t what, Jamie?” like maybe she needs to hear it as much as Jamie needs to say it. 

So fine. Out with it then.

“That I didn’t fall in love with you.”

There it is; the stark sterile clarity of the situation as it presents itself.

Jamie tries to take a breath, but it tangles in her throat and she has to swallow it down.

Has to watch as Dani takes a single step forward, her face unreadable for the tears blinding Jamie’s eyes.

“You’re…” she whispers, so weak and hushed that Jamie thinks, for a moment, she might have imagined it. “You love me?”

A silly question, perhaps. Jamie doesn’t think the way she looks—the way she’s holding her arms around her stomach to keep from falling apart; the way her tears drip from the edge of her chin and fall to the wet pavement below—could make it anymore clear.

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she swipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket and watches as Dani’s expression goes through several stages of emotional disconnect. There is disbelief, she is certain. And then it rapidly becomes nothing. That cool mask that is usually reserved for the cameras slides down over Dani’s face and she knows what is coming.

She’s known it all along.

“Jamie,” Dani says, trembling just as dreadfully. She never finishes.

Jamie doesn’t let her. “I shouldn’t have said that...I’m not trying to…” She just shakes her head, and takes a step backwards. Away. “I didn’t want it to seem like I was...I want you to do what...what’s right for you. And I meant it when I said I’d be here, whatever that is,” she says, but her throat feels raw and her voice sounds wrong. Like the words are sticking together in the wrong places; like a whisper into the open, yawning span of time. “I still mean it. And...that’s why.”

There is more to say. More to do. But Jamie can’t say it so she simply leaves.

Sweeps down the alley and away with as much dignity as she can scrape together.

_______

She goes home. There is nowhere else to go. The long walk there feels like it happens sideways. Upside-down. Walking at all feels like moving underwater. Runs out of air the same way.

It feels wrong to cry anymore than she already has. As if she has forfeited that right by leaving Dani standing there alone. But she has been left behind before. Just the same way, and it is selfish and graceless to let Dani be chastened for something neither of them control, but she doesn’t have any fight in her anymore.

Doesn’t have much of anything in her anymore.

She is a formless, grieving thing and she knows that this is not the end of the world.

She knows this and yet it still feels like it might be.

_______

The next morning. A call to Horace. 

“I won’t be there today. I’m—”

( _shattered; humiliated; in love with a married woman_ )

“—not feeling well.”

Horace is understanding. Always. “Alright,” he says. “I’ll take care of it. You just rest up, kid.”

She nods to no one. Says she will. 

Lies in bed as the morning becomes afternoon becomes night and thinks of what she’s missing.

Of Edmund and Dani living in front of the cameras acting their hearts out.

_______

The next day, it’s the same thing.

“I’m still sick,” she says.

“No problem, kid. I’ll keep you updated,” says Horace. “Feel better, okay?”

There’s a quality to his voice that Jamie has certainly heard before, but perhaps not this thickly. This blatantly. He is worried about her. He knows she’s lying and avoiding something and he’s worried.

She says, “I will,” because she cannot say _i am_ ; this can’t go on forever, anyway.

Tomorrow will have to be different.

She can cry and bargain and beg as much as she likes and she will still have to push on as long as there is air in her lungs because that is what she does—there are choices, yes, but there are rules as well—but no one has ever asked her what she thinks about it. What she wants or longs for, what and who she loves and how she wants to be. Who she wants to be.

Another thing: there is not one speck of _romance_ in wasting away for someone else.

_______

“We missed you last night,” says Horace the next morning as they’re setting up the studio for talking heads with Theo. 

“Who’s we?” Jamie asks, pretending to mess with her mixer so she doesn’t have to make eye contact. 

In the mirror just that morning, she’d seen herself in a sorry state; exhausted and pale and bloodshot eyes from two sleepless, restless days.

“Mostly me and Carl.” He gives a shrug. “Shirley has been on the rampage since you’ve been gone. Kept asking where you were and all that.” 

“Typical Shirley,” she says, even though it isn’t. She can guess at why Shirley was even worse than normal without trying to, and she grits her teeth in anticipation of having to deal with her today in whatever mood she decides on.

“Had us reshoot the girls greeting Rebecca at her flat six times.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.” He finishes off his coffee and tosses the paper cup he’s been cradling since she showed up into the nearest bin. “Dani was asking about you, too.”

Jamie’s vision wavers. She feels lightning-struck. “What about?”

“Just seemed worried. Asking if you were okay.”

It’s not much, but imagining Dani going to Horace to check on her is just sharp enough to slice. In the two days of her absence, she has fielded texts and calls from both Owen and Trish. Russ even sent a few messages regarding the shooting times for the day just the night before. But Dani has not tried to reach her. Not once.

No, but she thought to ask after her.

“Well, I am,” Jamie decides finally meeting Horace’s gaze. 

There’s commotion by the door to the studio: Theo coming in with a babbling Shirley at her side. She looks over at them and then back to find Horace staring at her, eyes narrowed and expression soft. Paternal.

“You sure about that?” he asks. 

There are two things she could say: the truth or _a_ truth.

She chooses the latter and says, “Who is?” shrugging like she has never known pain.

_______

Seeing Dani again that afternoon is brutally unremarkable. It’s a short shoot because Edmund comes home late and they have to rush through talking heads and dinner. Jamie has imagined it going all sorts of ways in the two days they’ve been apart, but it is much more simple than anything she could have anticipated; here she is and here Dani is and here they both are, not speaking to one another.

It takes a tremendous effort on Jamie’s part to keep her shoulders and head held high. If she has learned anything from her time in this industry, it’s that she cannot show even one small hint of vulnerability.

They don’t actually have to interact at all. Dani does not try, so Jamie does not try. Horace handles miking everyone up and Jamie ignores Shirley’s meaningful looks.

Keeps her eyes fixed at some point of the sun-filled room that is far safer to stare at than Dani has ever been.

_______

This is the group dinner they film the day before everyone is set to depart on their brief, second honeymoons— or “mini-moons” as the show calls them, though Jamie refuses to dignify that with acknowledgement: small talk and work talk and then the inevitable slide into the more personal questions.

This is how these group dinners usually go.

Half social reconnaissance, half therapy session.

Hannah and Owen are happily leaned into one another. Owen had grinned and waved when he first got to the private, reserved room of the restaurant they’re in and now he keeps sending her these happy, little looks, not unlike a dog might give their owner after too much forced separation.

Rebecca and Peter are sitting a bit too far apart to be considered normal. Occasionally, they’ll talk beneath their breath to one another, but the semi-constipated look on Peter’s face only gets worse the more the night drags on.

If possible, Dani and Edmund are even worse. There is something that has changed in the time since Jamie saw Edmund last and she can place its evidence but not its source. He keeps his eyes down for the most part, doing the bare minimum of social interaction and while he and Dani aren’t sitting nearly as far from one another as Rebecca and Peter, there is another, more tangible distance between them. They are each equally sullen and withdrawn, talking around one another when addressed and never _to_ one another.

And once the conversation switches to everyone’s greatest struggle in their marriages so far, Edmund closes off completely.

Rebecca says something about communication; Peter gruffs an agreement with no amendment.

Hannah and Owen are still blissfully content as they talk about making little things into bigger deals than they need to be as Decision Day closes in. Hannah nods along, playing with his hand on the table and staring at him with glaring affection that does a little to calm the churn in Jamie’s heart.

But once they’re finished speaking, there is silence. Neither Dani nor Edmund make any attempt to jump into the conversation. It takes Rebecca asking them directly to get them going.

“What about you, Edmund?” she asks. “What do you think your biggest struggle has been?”

Edmund finally looks up and is quiet, contemplative for a moment. He glances at Dani and then gives a little shake of his head. “I think most of it is stuff I shouldn’t say,” he says.

“Okay,” says Rebecca. “That’s okay.”

“No, tell us,” says Peter, sitting up taller, flashing those shining, sharp teeth.

Several things happen at once: Rebecca puts a hand on Peter’s arm and tells him no, that it’s not their business; Owen cuts in to say the same; Dani stiffens in her seat and closes herself off impossibly further; and Edmund’s expression pinches tighter and tighter.

Above the overlapping chatter of the others, he says, “I mean, I can talk about it. That’s fine with me, but she’s not gonna be happy about it.”

“Then don’t,” Owen tells him. “It’s fine, really. Just—”

“He should talk if he wants to talk,” says Peter.

“Stop it,” says Rebecca.

Edmund takes one more look at Dani, who has her eyes shut beside him, and then turns back to the others. “It’s been really hard being the only one of us who wants to be married.”

The tension crackles, bounces around the room, pulling the air too tight and making everything feel disconnected. Strange.

No one is sure what to say.

“But I’m here and Decision Day is coming, so…” He trails off with a shrug.

All eyes, save Peter’s, are on Dani then, as if trying to assess the damage done. After a bitter moment, she sits up again and reaches for her water glass. Asks Edmund, without looking at him, “Feel better?” in this terse tone and then takes a drink. Sets it back down.

“Yep,” he says, but it’s clearly a lie. A dig. A bite, even.

Dani nods, eyes down. “Good.”

The others sit frozen in time. Edmund has not been anything but his normal, amiable self in front of them. Seeing him like this, so caustic and harsh is—

Well, you can imagine.

_______

In his talking head after dinner, just outside the doors to the private room, he says: “It wasn’t the right time or the right way to say that, I know. But things have just been so...tense lately and normally we can at least try to talk it out or something, but it’s like she’s...done. I don’t know. Maybe I am, too.”

_______

In hers, Dani shakes her head and presses her lips together, then says: “I don’t want to answer that. Next question?”

_______

It isn’t Jamie’s place. It isn’t. So Shirley won’t stop writing on her clipboard after and some of the crew is muttering things to one another, glancing at Dani and Edmund every so often as they do. So Dani looks as broken as Jamie feels. So Edmund looks much the same.

Jamie’s done enough; everything, really, save for stand her ground, so she tries that for once.

Hates how it feels, how it makes her bones ache. Doesn’t matter. Keeps moving forward.

_______

Owen and Hannah go to Paris.

Rebecca and Peter go to Scotland.

Dani and Edmund go to a hotel in Cornwall.

The drive there is numbing, and she’s sure whatever footage they capture from inside Dani’s car will be just as bad. Her and Edmund hardly spoke to one another as they were filmed getting their luggage together and leaving their flat. 

A few words here and there: Edmund asking if Dani packed his phone charger and Dani saying that she did; Dani asking Edmund to pull up the directions on his phone and Edmund telling her he will.

Of all the times Jamie has watched them interact with one another, it’s this one that leaves her cold and unsteady. It feels wrong between them now. Vinegary and stinging. 

It feels like the end.

_______

Jamie contemplates this as she helps Russ get everything ready for filming at the restaurant in the hotel. Dani and Edmund are checking in while Carl captures their every move. The rest of the crew is upstairs preparing for their arrival, Horace miking everything up and double-checking it.

She waits to feel guilty or remorseful for the way this whole thing has turned. For the way Edmund has shut down; for the way Dani won’t look at him or touch him or even stand too near him, really. She waits to feel anything other than the whispering hope that’s loosening the stiffness in her shoulders, making her hands steady and the air bright.

It never comes.

_______

“We’ve got the room ready to go,” Shirley tells Russ over their headsets and then it’s time to wait for the dinner to start.

Jamie spends the time pacing back and forth out front of the hotel, occasionally smoking, but mostly just trying to shake away the sudden, sharp press of energy through her limbs and lungs. Heart. Head. Everywhere.

It smells like rain in the air. Like a storm is coming and she’s sure that this is a simile but she’s too busy thinking of other things for that. 

Part of her knows what’s coming. Part of her hopes she’s wrong.

But the rest of her, oh the rest of her, is burning, blooming, blossoming and _becoming_ , unfurling its wings in her chest and stomach. The rest of her is trying not to fly away.

_______

“It’s a nice hotel.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“The room is nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Bit of a drive, but…”

“Mhm.”

Edmund pauses his movements, knife and fork still poised to cut into his steak, so he can watch Dani pick at her salad. “This giraffe meat is really good.”

There’s no reaction. Dani just nods. Takes a bite of her salad.

He tries something else: “I used butter to style my hair this morning.”

Still nothing. Just: “That’s nice.”

“I’m moving to Japan to open an office supply warehouse.”

Dani nods. Takes another bite. Finally looks up at him and just smiles vacantly before looking away again.

Something in Edmund’s expression almost looks amused by this, if only because he’s getting exasperated. “I use the socks you got me for underwear.”

He punctuates this by waving a hand in front of Dani’s face, stretching his arm from across the table to do it.

Dani whips her head up to look at him, horrified. “What?”

“Finally got your attention,” he says. “You were pretty far away there, space cadet.”

“I’m sorry,” says Dani. “I just…”

He shakes his head. “No, I get it. It’s been...It’s been a rough few days.”

Dani blinks. “Yeah. It has been.”

A new tactic then: Edmund sets his silverware down and sits back in his chair. “Look, about last night, I...I was out of line.” He scrubs a hand through his hair and Dani does not respond. She just watches as he pieces together the rest of his apology. “I’ve just been...I don’t know. I feel like we’re drifting apart, which is hard because we were _already_ so far apart and I shouldn’t have said something stupid just to hurt you. I know that you’ve been trying just as hard as I have been.”

“Yeah,” Dani breathes, lips parted with some mixture of emotions.

Edmund gives her this sad, little smile and, for a moment, Jamie feels suffocated by guilt as it claws up her throat, ties itself into knots in her lungs. She thinks about Dani again, about _he’s a good guy_ and _he’s my friend_ and she’s very glad that Edmund does not look at her because she is certain that he could read on her face, plainly, every thought and regret she’s ever had.

“I know that I’m not the only one who wants to keep fighting. Who wants to _be_ married.”

And for all the heartache, all the drama and the fights and the times that they have each come crawling back to one another, promising to be better, promising to try harder, the end comes in just a moment—in the space between one breath and the next.

Dani flummoxes. And it is no mystery why: the error in this choice of words is in the air around her, thin and wavering but _there_ , hanging murky and dense and making it impossible for her to hide her authentic reaction. Jamie thinks that it is terrible that they are not alone, because no one needs to be able to quantify her chagrin to read her now. These are dangerous waters that Edmund has waded into with the cameras and the crew and everyone else in the restaurant right there.

Edmund’s face falls. Collapses, really. But, it’s strange: he doesn’t seem surprised. Not even in the slightest. His shoulders droop and he looks away.

Recognizing her mistake, Dani darts her hand out to touch his on the table, but he pulls it away before she can. “Eddie,” she says. “I—”

“So that’s it then,” he says very quietly. “You don’t want to do this anymore.”

Not a question. Just fact. 

Dani doesn’t try to deny it; there’d be no point anyway. 

“It’s done,” says Edmund. “Isn’t it?”

Dani takes a harsh breath. Her lower lip wavers. “Eddie, I have _tried_. I’ve tried so hard and I just...I don’t know.”

Near the monitor, Jamie’s heart sinks on Edmund’s behalf. Those three dreadful words.

“So...What now?” He pitches his voice soft and clear, casual despite the context of the situation and the way they are sitting, the way they are sliding out of one another’s atmospheres already. “Do you wanna talk to the experts, or…?”

“I don’t know,” Dani says again ( _and again and again_ ). “We’re so close to the...to the end, and I…”

No ending.

Edmund nods anyway. “Yeah. Okay.”

Things are silent for a very long time. Neither of them looks away from one another. Shirley is watching this whole thing with this wild and stunned look. Jamie isn’t even sure if she’s breathing anymore.

Isn’t sure if _she_ is either.

The next thing that happens proves Dani’s position irrefutably. She slides her wedding band off of her finger and sets it down in front of Edmund. He stares down at it, the muscles in his jaw so tight that Jamie can see it from where she’s standing. And the lighting is shit, but it’s evident that Edmund is on the verge of tears, frustration lacing the set of his eyebrows as he reaches out and picks the ring up.

He doesn’t try to fight it. Maybe he knows there’s no point, or maybe it’s something else.

Possibly: he’s just as finished with this as Dani is.

After a moment, he sets the ring back down on the tablecloth. Then he gets to his feet.

Before Dani can ask, he says, “I’m not...I’m going to go then.”

Dani looks up at him, devastated at the thought. “No, Eddie, you shouldn’t have to—”

“I can’t stay here, Dani.”

She breathes. Gives a tight nod. “Okay.”

Edmund grips the back of his chair so tightly that wood creaks from the force of it. “We have the room for the next few days. I’ll just...I’ll catch a train back to London and—”

“Take my car,” Dani says rapidly, getting to her feet, and, when he looks like he wants to argue, she says, “Please. I’d feel better knowing that you...That you get home safe.”

 _Home_.

That word sticks in the space between them, taunting them with its familiarity.

“Okay,” Edmund says. 

Jamie knows how it feels. Some part of it at least. She thinks of that alleyway and the way it felt to understand that the only choice she had was to leave.

“I’m sorry, Eddie.” Dani’s voice breaks against the words. “I’m so sorry.”

And for all his faults, Edmund does not let this settle. He says, “Me, too.” And with one last cheerless smile, he turns and leaves the restaurant, disappearing back into the hotel lobby and around the corner. 

Dani stands there for a long time after he’s gone. Shirley cuts the cameras and then they’re just standing there, too, none of them certain what the next move is. Jamie longs to go to Dani, to draw her into her arms and soothe her. Fix her. Make this right.

She doesn’t.

It isn’t until Edmund walks past the restaurant again, his suitcase in tow, that Dani finally moves. He looks at her across all that distance—between the tables and other patrons and the glass walls—and nods. Hesitates just so. And then he’s gone.

As soon as he is, Dani steps around the table without a word and leaves. On the table, their unfinished dinner sits, dismally forgotten. A totem of this last dinner.

There’s a loud buzzing in Jamie’s ears. It feels like every single piece of her is vibrating, the fog in her mind tuned to a higher frequency than it ever has been before. Even her jaw is trembling, teeth clacking together a little. 

Someone says something to her—Shirley, she thinks—but she doesn’t hear them. Doesn’t even look at them.

She’s already out the door.

_______

It’s a miracle that she manages to make it to the third floor at all given the way her legs are shaking. She is unsteady and unstable and teetering too close to an edge that drops down into some great, yawning darkness.

Room 324 looms in front of her, that last barrier between who she’s been and who she wants to be, and she feels like a child, like a teenager, like Danny fucking Torrance pulling on the handle of a door that leads to doom.

Or else—

She knocks three times. Rapidly. A little too loud. It aches against her knuckles and then she feels silly and stuffs her hand into her pocket. Considers turning around and leaving.

What is she expecting?

Dani to fall into her arms just like that? Sunset and page-turn and credits and all?

Before she can decide, the door opens and then she is there, standing closer than she has been since that alleyway, since Jamie laid everything out on the line and ran away. Dani stares at her in a way that makes Jamie feel like she could collapse. It is a look that, until now, she has always associated with the victims of natural disasters or tragedies as they are pulled out of the detritus and into the real world again.

And now it’s fixed on her.

“Hey,” says Jamie on an exhale. 

“Hey,” says Dani.

“Are you...Are you okay?”

She winces the moment the question passes her lips. What an infuriating thing to ask when she already knows the answer.

“If I say that I don’t know,” Dani begins, “will you be upset?”

Jamie shakes her head, tries to hide the careless surrender of herself at the mere sound of her voice. “No,” she says. “You just...I’m sorry, Dani.”

Dani stares at her, dark circles under her bloodshot eyes, lips sore and red from being bitten at. “Are you?” she asks, and it’s not a jab. It isn’t a dig. It’s a genuine question, and Jamie makes herself consider it genuinely.

Weighs the truth she thought she knew with the truth she now feels.

And: “Yes. Yes, of course I am. I didn’t—” But she can’t finish the sentence.

She can’t say: _I didn’t want you to go through something like this._

She can’t say: _I didn’t want you to get hurt._

Just like she can’t say _I love you_ , even though it’s right there on the tip of her tongue.

She can’t say anything at all because Dani is leaning in, cupping Jamie’s face in her hands, and kissing her. Hard. Desperate. Unyielding.

What she can do: kiss Dani back with everything inside of her. Dani’s body presses against her own and she clutches at Dani’s hips, digging her fingertips into them the way she’s dreamt about for weeks. For what feels like years. Forever. Dani gasps against her lips and Jamie’s mind goes numb to anything but the hand that slides into her hair, fisting it and pulling her head in so that Dani can kiss her harder.

She feels herself being pulled a little, guided backwards, and she is still distantly aware of the fact that they are doing this in the doorway of the room, where anyone can see them. She lets herself be pulled, moves forward and forward until they’re inside and the door slams shut behind them. And then Dani is shoving her back against the door, starting a new kiss that is even more urgent than the last one. 

Jamie slips a thigh between Dani’s leg, pulling her in tighter so that she has enough leverage. A moan vibrates her teeth and her stomach twists when she feels Dani grind down into her thigh. One of Dani’s hands slides down her shoulder only to reappear at her waist, slipping underneath the hem of her sweater and then Jamie’s making her own helpless noises. Fingers slide against her stomach, warm and frantic, tracing the line just above her belt.

“Dani, we—” she whispers when they pull apart, cutting off to try and catch her breath. Before her is a Dani she has never seen—flushed and bruised lips and dilated pupils swallowing up the blue in her eyes. She falls even more desperately in love in a moment. Tries to wrap her head around what is happening.

But Dani shakes her head and leans back in, kissing Jamie’s cheek and then her jaw. Dotting around to her ear and pulling her earlobe between blunt teeth, making her squirm a little. 

“Do you want me to stop?” Dani whispers, grinding down against Jamie’s thigh again. 

Jamie presses her face into Dani’s neck, breathing in the smell of her shampoo, her perfume. Her skin is so soft beneath Jamie’s lips and every wet pant of breath against her ear sends plumes of heat spiraling through her to settle in the low of her stomach. She shakes her head. “No, no,” she pants. “Fuck no.”

“Okay.”

In the second of stillness after she speaks, Jamie jumps into motion, taking the opportunity to wrap her arm around Dani’s waist to flip them around so that Dani is the one pressed to the door. “You first,” she whispers, because she’s been dreaming about this for so long. She fumbles with the buttons on Dani’s shirt, cursing into a kiss until Dani reaches up and helps her. The moment she has more room to work, Jamie slides her hand inside and cups Dani’s breast through her bra.

Dani groans, shivers, as Jamie’s thumb stutters over her nipple. Jamie kisses down her neck, nipping at her skin, sucking some of it between her teeth, leaving marks. Because _fuck it_. Because that fucking ring is finally, finally off of Dani’s finger. Ducking her head, she unbuttons the last of Dani’s shirt until it is hanging open enough that she can press her lips to the skin above the waistband of Dani’s jeans. There’s a faint thud: Dani’s head lolling back against the door as her knees begin to buckle.

Moving back up, Jamie catches her before she can fall and murmurs, “Bed, yeah?”

“Yes, yes,” Dani breathes, pressing her forehead to Jamie’s, eyelids fluttering. “Please.”

Jamie pulls at her waist, guiding her in a hurried stumble across the suit and towards the king-sized bed on the other side of it. It feels like it takes forever to get there, but that might be because Dani stops every few seconds to press their lips together again, to slide her tongue into Jamie’s mouth and graze her teeth across her bottom lip.

When they reach it, Jamie practically plants Dani onto the edge of it and Dani scoots back quickly, sliding horizontally across the mattress so that Jamie can crawl up her body, kissing all the skin she can reach as she goes. There’s a pause then, hesitation as the two of them take in the sight of one another in a situation Jamie is certain neither of them has fully anticipated actually happening. Dani lifts her hands and catches Jamie’s face between her palms, brushing some of her hair behind her ears. Looks up at Jamie with those blue eyes darkened by lust and something else she can’t place. And then she slides one of them back to cup Jamie’s neck and the other to her hip so she can _pull_.

It knocks Jamie off balance and she catches on her elbows on either side of Dani’s head, pressed down against Dani from the waist down. Even from just this angle, the pressure it causes is too much to take and Jamie gasps. Dani frees her legs so she can bend her knees, so Jamie can fall into the cradle of them. She bucks up a little, like she doesn’t quite mean to and Jamie groans.

“Dani,” Jamie whispers, pressing her lips to Dani’s cheeks, to her nose, to her forehead as Dani rakes her fingers up and down Jamie’s back through her sweater. “Dani, _Dani_.”

Dani smiles at her slowly, the same smile that has been making Jamie feel dizzy and dying all this time. “Jamie,” she whispers back. “Jamie, _Jamie_.”

The simple repetition, the fond mimicry, sets Jamie’s nerves on fire and she sits up as Dani pulls at the hem of her sweater. Yanks it off over her head and tosses it somewhere. Anywhere. Watches Dani sit up and push her shirt away. The air in the room is biting and cold, the air conditioner blasting away by the window, and Jamie looks down at Dani, doing her level best to seem far more confident than she feels.

Because this is Dani. This is beautiful, lovely, incredible Dani whose lips part as she takes in the sight of Jamie topless above her. “Jamie...You’re so... _Come here_ ,” and the gentle whisper is broken by their next kiss. Dani presses up into it with something more deliberate. More sincere.

Jamie sort of feels like she could burst into tears at any moment, but she blinks that urge away and trails her lips down Dani’s neck and sternum. Dani closes her eyes and arches her back when Jamie slips a hand between her back and the mattress, pulling at the clasp of the bra. Once it’s undone, it’s Dani that pulls it off and tosses it aside, because Jamie is too busy pulling one her nipples into her mouth. Making Dani’s breath catch.

The heat between Dani’s legs, pressing into the low of Jamie’s stomach, and it’s almost too much to look at her, writhing beneath her like this. They’re not moving quickly enough, Jamie decides.

And, yes, she wants to savor this. _Yes_ , she wants to take her time, but she _can’t_. It’s beyond her control now and, by the looks of it, Dani is feeling the same way.

She reaches down and pulls at the clasp of Dani’s jeans, kneeling above her on the bed to do so. Dani helps her slide the tight fabric down her legs, laughs a little self-consciously as Jamie tugs her shoes off for her, throwing her a dreamy grin. 

When she slides back up, she starts with something familiar, something easy. Goes back to Dani’s breasts, going between the two of them, listening to Dani curse a little and shift. Feeling her arch up into her. Then she starts to move lower, kissing down her ribs and belly button, the sharp bones of her hips and then skipping over. Shifting herself down the mattress so she can kiss Dani’s thighs, higher and higher.

“Jamie,” Dani groans. “ _Please_.”

And, for all the times Jamie has imagined hearing that, she never imagined how much it would make her shake. 

“Okay, okay,” she whispers, pinching the fabric of Dani’s panties between her fingers and pulling them down her legs, watching as Dani kicks them away and then opens her thighs again. Places one of her legs on Jamie’s other side.

“Fucking _fuck_ , Dani,” is the next thing Jamie says. She is still sitting up, so she falls forward onto her left palm and then runs her index finger through the wet _heat_ between Dani’s thighs. “You’re perfect.”

“Please,” Dani says again and Jamie feels a gentle hand smooth across the top of her head, guiding her up and so Jamie goes. Keeps her hand between Dani’s legs, using two fingers to explore, to map it out, as she presses down into another kiss. The pads of her fingers brush across Dani’s clit and Dani gasps around Jamie’s tongue as it flicks into her mouth. “Oh my god.”

Jamie is trying very hard not to overthink this. She is trying not to let her head go into a spin from the knowledge that this is _Dani_ spread naked and wanting beneath her. Tries to keep breathing because Dani is so fucking wet.

“Been thinking about this forever,” Jamie whispers. “Wanting _you_ forever.” 

An arm looped around her neck. Dani nodding against her forehead. “Me too, me too,” she babbles. “Inside, Jay. Need you in—” and she cuts off, unfinished, because Jamie is sliding two fingers into her just like that, crooking her fingers. “Jamie, _Jamie_ ,” is her next gasp, hips bucking up.

“Christ.” Jamie kisses the side of Dani’s mouth, feels Dani panting, open-mouthed, against her ear and neck. “I can’t believe I’m—”

Dani nods again, bumping against her. “I can’t either. Please don’t stop.”

Like Jamie ever could. She pumps her fingers harder and kisses Dani again. Pulls away to nip at her jaw. 

“Another,” Dani gasps, opening her eyes so that they can look at one another. She licks her lips, grinding into Jamie’s hand. “Another finger. _Please_.”

“Yeah?” Jamie asks, even as she shakes. 

“Yes, yes.” Another nod. “Another. Like when I—”

And _fuck_. She’s so tight, muscles contracting and shuddering as Jamie adds another finger.

“ _Fuck_ , Dani,” she groans. 

“Like when I…”

“When you what, baby?” The pet name slips out so easily and Dani curses, throwing her head back against the mattress.

“Like...L-Like when I imagine it’s you. _Just like that_.”

Jamie can’t handle looking at her anymore. She ducks her head down and presses her face into the other woman’s neck. Kisses her pulse. Tastes her heartbeat as it bites at the back of her throat. 

_When I imagine it’s you_ , she thinks.

“Come on, doll,” Jamie whispers. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Her muscles are screaming in her arms, begging her to stop, but she can’t. Pumps her fingers harder and presses her hips down into it. Twists her wrist into an uncomfortable position so she can press the bottom of her palm against Dani’s clit.

“ _Jesus_ , Jamie,” is what Dani pants against Jamie’s next kiss and her body _snaps_ beneath her. She shakes and sighs and then slowly stills.

“Are you okay?” Jamie asks, pressing herself up a bit so they can look at one another.

“Amazing,” Dani says, eyelids fluttering open again. She kisses Jamie again and Jamie can feel relief, pride, _love_ flooding through her veins. 

The kiss becomes more within seconds. Changes. Turns dirty and rough. Dani pushes at Jamie’s shoulders until Jamie gets the idea and rolls off of her, letting herself be pressed back against the mattress.

If she thought the sight of Dani below her was too much, then the sight of her naked and flushed and satisfied above her is even more. Dani doesn’t hesitate like Jamie did. She goes for Jamie’s belt immediately, pulling it undone and then doing the same to Jamie’s jeans, tugging them down without waiting for Jamie to make it easier. Jamie kicks helplessly at her shoes, trying to tug them off, but she only manages one before she realizes that, in her hurry, Dani has pulled down her underwear with her jeans.

She watches Dani look her over, nervous and wanting thick and heavy in her lungs. Dani runs her fingers along the freckles on Jamie’s sternum and then down to the cup of her bra. She tugs the cup down until it is caught, awkwardly, beneath Jamie’s breast, but Jamie can’t care because Dani is sliding those fingers over her nipple. 

“I’m having trouble believing this is really happening,” she says. “I keep waiting to wake up.” She ducks her head and presses a kiss to Jamie’s shoulder, then her chest, moving slowly down to the same to that same nipple.

“I don’t want to,” Jamie says, fingers sliding into Dani’s hair and holding on. “If I’m dreaming, I don’t want to wake up.”

“You’re not dreaming.” Teeth skim over her nipple, fingers slipping into the other bra cup to roll the other one between cool fingers. “It’s real.” She moves back up for another kiss. “I only know the theory of what I’m doing,” she admits and Jamie kisses her again for that.

“That’s okay,” Jamie says. “You won’t have to do much. I promise.” 

“Okay.” Another kiss and then Dani is doing the entirely unexpected and sliding all the way down Jamie’s body, pressing herself into the mattress between Jamie’s legs and kissing the inside of her thighs.

“Oh, my god,” she sighs. “Oh, my god, this is happening.” Her skin feels like it’s on fire and she can’t remember the last time she was so bare and vulnerable with someone. Thinks this might be the first time.

What a first time it is.

She’s never been in love before. Distantly, she acknowledges that this is why it feels like _this_.

“It’s happening,” Dani confirms, sounding a little pleased with herself. 

Jamie bends her knees a little to give Dani room, and she’s doing a countdown in her head, trying to prepare herself, but it’s no use because Dani doesn’t wait. She just ducks her head and goes to work. 

She’s a little clumsy at first, a little unsure, but Jamie’s noises—the way she trembles from the effort of trying not to grind into Dani’s mouth—must egg her on. Make her more confident and steady. Those fingers part her and Jamie’s never been loud, but it’s like she can’t stop herself. She presses one of her hands over her mouth, trying to muffle the noises, but all she manages to do is make Dani pull that clever tongue of hers away.

“Don’t,” she whispers, reaching up to pull at Jamie’s elbow. “I wanna hear you.”

And _fuck_. Okay.

Jamie grips the comforter beneath her instead, clawing at the soft material until she has something to clench in her fist. 

Dani slides her tongue down teasingly, then right back up, humming as she zeroes in on Jamie’s clit. 

“ _Christ_ ,” Jamie breathes in a voice that is not her own. “Right there.”

Another hum. Stars burst behind Jamie’s eyelids. When Dani slides a finger inside her, she can’t help the way she arches, the way she moans Dani’s name as Dani adds another one, thrusting in evenly until she matches the rhythm of her tongue against Jamie’s clit. After that, Jamie isn’t sure of much of anything save for the heat flooding over her, drowning her; save for Dani’s tongue and her fingers. Too much, too much. Never enough. She hears herself say things ( _a little— fuck, to the left_ ; _yes, like that_ ; _perfect perfect i can’t_ —) but she can’t focus on any of them.

The noise she makes when she comes is something Jamie has never heard before. She clacks her teeth together strangely, lucky to avoid biting her tongue in half, as bright, honeyed rapture washes over her.

In the moments after, as she comes back down, Dani slides back up and falls to Jamie’s side, tucking her head into Jamie’s neck. Pressing in so that Jamie can feel the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. She wraps her arm around the other woman, tracing the sharp bones of Dani’s shoulder blades.

“Jamie,” Dani exhales. A kiss to her shoulder.

Jamie tilts her head to look at her because she knows what has to come next without either of them acknowledging it. She knows and she’s terrified of it. But before she can say that, there is a loud and hurried knock at the door.

It startles them both, makes them jump into one another’s arms a bit and then—

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jamie mutters and the color drains from Dani’s face. For a moment, Jamie is worried that she may faint.

She sits up quickly and grabs for her bra on the other side of the mattress, pulling it back on and then moving around to find her underwear. Jamie does the same, straightening what little she’s wearing and then scoots down to the edge of the bed to tug her pants back on. Her sweater is on the floor and she picks it up and pulls it on, too.

Another loud, insistent knock.

There’s a look of panic on Dani’s face as she scurries to get redressed that Jamie imagines kissing away. Her hands are shaking so badly that she nearly can’t manage the button on her jeans, so Jamie stands up. Goes to help her.

A third round of knocks, somehow more violent than the others, but they are dressed now and Dani hurries to the door, combing her fingers through her hair. Jamie trails after slowly, doing the same. Bracing herself for whoever is waiting on the other side.

Dani glances at her one last time before he grabs the door handle and then she pulls it open.

It’s Horace standing in the hallway, white-faced and strange. 

“What?” Jamie asks, coming to a halt beside Dani. “What’s wrong?”

She imagines the worst: Shirley on her way, Edmund coming back, the end of the fucking world or _something_.

She imagines the worst and she is still outmatched.

“T-The,” Horace begins, then starts again. “The mics, Jamie.”

Beside her, Dani stiffens. “What?” she breathes, this broken thing.

Horace fixes his eyes on her, then turns them back to Jamie for a moment. “They miked the room earlier,” he says, “and Shirley—”

He doesn’t need to finish. 

“Oh, my god.” Dani’s voice has changed, tilted into something wretchedly terrified. “Oh... _Fuck_.”

Jamie reaches out and captures her arm at the wrist, suddenly very worried that Dani is going to up and disappear. But Dani shakes her off. Doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t look at Horace.

She just yanks herself free and takes off, pushing past Horace, out the door, and—going, going, _gone_ —away.

..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeeeeeeeeeeee. pls pls validate me writing 20k in three days. thanks.


	10. The End or the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promised this on Thursday and technically it is still Thursday where i live for another five minutes!
> 
> that being said: don't panic at the new chapter i've added. it is just the epilogue, which is already under way.
> 
> this is the actual concluding chapter of the story. you could read this and leave the epilogue entirely if you wanted—but i hope you don't bc i have some fluff, some Shirley, and some sexy sex planned!
> 
> BEFORE YOU READ, let me just said how much fun i've had writing this! it's been an absolute blast and i truly thought i was crazy for even wanting to do this AU in the first place. i really was not expecting all of you lovely people who have so kindly and generously shared your thoughts, encouragements, and general awesomeness with me. so...right on.
> 
> and thank you thank you.
> 
> now...enjoy the infamous summary excerpt in its true form. ;)

After all the curveballs, after all the twists and tears, the blood, sweat and, _god_ , the tears she’s put into all of it—after seven weeks of sliding sure-footed over the thin, thin ice left behind in Edmund and Dani’s wake—Shirley thinks that she really should have expected something like this to happen. This job has hardly ever worked in ways she could anticipate and there is a certain level of mystery and constant foreboding that accompanies filming an unscripted (mostly, anyway) reality television series. If she has learned _anything_ from the years she’s put into her career’s chosen genre, it’s this:

She shouldn’t be surprised. _None_ of this should be surprising. And yet—

It’s been a long day. Hours getting ready for and then getting _to_ the location of the mini-moon. Time spent setting up “command central” in one of the hotel’s smaller conference rooms, then making Dani and Edmund’s room was set and ready. Handing out room assignments to the crew, getting on the same page as the hotel management for the dinner shoot. So on. So forth.

And this was meant to be the easier day. The next three days would be spent trailing around the city after Edmund and Dani as they made the most of their time away. Tonight should have been arriving. Then dinner. Then bed.

Simple.

But now—

“—back to their apartment, I think,” Shirley is saying to an equally flustered Mike, her phone pressed too hard against her ear. It aches and pinches, but she ignores it in favor of chewing her thumb nail as she thinks everything over. She’s been pacing the length of the conference room for the better part of the last five minutes on the phone, and the rest of the crew, scattered around, are looking more and more frantic by the second. Lost. Directionless. “Dani’s still here. I sent Carl to follow her up to the room, but—”

“Does Theo know?” Mike asks.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got Russ on the phone with her.”

“I can get Abigail’s crew over to run interference with Edmund tomorrow.”

Shirley nods absently, turning on her heel so she can pace in the opposite direction. “That’s fine,” she says. “Okay.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line and Shirley knows what’s coming before Mike even says it. It’s the same thing that’s been circling their conversations for the last month. The same thing she’s been puzzling and losing sleep over. 

“What about—?”

“I’ve got it handled,” she cuts in, not eager to justify the thread she’s been following any more than she already has had to. “She ran off after Edmund left, probably after Dani. I’ve got Carl on it.”

“Right, right.” 

“Yeah.”

Another pause. “Look, I know you think you’ve got something here, but it might be time to—”

Whatever he says next is lost to Shirley. She’s far too busy taking in the sight of a visibly flustered Carl slipping into the room with his camera held in his arms. She throws him an inquisitive look, but he sees the phone pressed to her ear and goes, instead, to Russ, who has only just finished speaking to Theo. Shirley watches as Carl says something that makes Russ’s expression change. 

Explode, really. Going from neutral interest into animated bewilderment. He says something Shirley can’t hear, using his hands more than usual to gesture as he speaks. Carl says something else and then the two of them stand there silently, like they’re trying to wrap their heads around something.

“Shirley? Are you listening to me?” Mike says, jostling Shirley’s attention away. 

“Yeah,” she says, but Russ is looking her way now, eyes wide and startled and she doesn’t have time to sit—or stand—through another long-winded explanation as to why she needs to focus on the story she _has_ rather than the one she wants to _make_. “Let me call you back.”

He splutters, probably trying to ask her what she means by that, but Shirley hangs up before it matters, slipping her phone into her pocket and crossing the room to where Russ and Carl are still standing.

As she approaches, Russ scurries away to the long line of tables where their monitoring equipment has been set up. He grabs for a headset resting in an empty chair by the sound mixer and begins fiddling with a few things. 

“What’s going on?” says Shirley, coming to a halt beside Carl.

He’s a young thing. Easily frightened by the unexpected. In the two years he’s been on the show, she’s seen arguments between their couples have a similar effect on him. But there’s no doubt that this is different somehow, whatever it is. He doesn’t even seem capable of speaking to it directly.

Instead, he fumbles for the right words.

“I-I…” he begins, blinking too rapidly. “I went up to the room, right? Like you said I should, except...Jamie, she...she was already there and she and Dani were talking and then—”

He cuts off at the exact moment morbid interest begins to prickle like needles beneath her skin. Because this is what she’s been waiting for, she’s sure of it. All of these weeks of mounting tension, all the longing stares and private interactions she’s managed to have the camera crew capture, are—maybe, _hopefully_ —coming to a head now that Edmund is out of the picture. But Carl seems incapable of finishing the thought.

In a brief moment of desperate impatience, Shirley imagines throttling him. She forces the thought away, though, because Russ is saying:

“Hey, um...Shirley?”

He’s standing in front of one of their monitors, a heavy look in his eyes as he fixes his gaze on her. One of his arms is bent, hand cupping the headphone on his ear and that prickling sensation is back in an instant.

She steps around Carl and starts toward him. “Yeah?” 

“You may want to hear this.”

And then he is taking off the headset and handing it over to her. Watching as she places it carefully on her own ears. Waits like he is expecting the end of the world to arrive at any moment.

At first, Shirley doesn’t understand why. There is nothing coming through the headset save for empty static.

Russ frowns at her. “The room,” he says. “We...We miked it earlier, before dinner, and—”

“Wait,” Shirley hisses. “Shut up.”

She’d heard something. She’s certain of it. And she’s telling herself that it’s just a voice, that it’s a simple, ordinary conversation that they’re recording right now, because she couldn’t possibly have heard—

“ _Fucking fuck, Dani...You’re perfect_.”

Oh. Okay. So. Not imagining it, then. Because she’d been certain she’d heard a _whimper_ . A gasp. Heavy breathing. And now she knows: she _had_.

“Oh my god,” she whispers.

The strangeness of this whole thing has garnered them a bit more attention. Some of the crew that seemed half-asleep just minutes before is now watching Shirley with rapt attention, whispering amongst themselves. Trying to figure out what it is that’s going on. 

Russ isn’t even listening to it anymore, but his jaw is still dropped open in confusion. “I don’t—” he begins, but Shirley shakes her head at him.

“Shut it, Russ,” she says, trying to listen harder. There are other noises. The squeaking of furniture. Someone panting and cursing. Whimpering again.

“Should we—”

“ _Shut up_.”

“ _Inside, Jay. Need you in_ —”

And there’s Dani’s voice, clear as day. After weeks spent listening to it—in person and in the editing room; over and over—Shirley thinks she could recognize it anywhere. Not to mention the other voice. Even without Dani’s panted abbreviation of the name, there can be no doubt about the other participant’s identity.

“We need to shut these things off,” Russ says and Shirley flaps a hand at him.

“ _Christ...I can’t believe I’m_ —”

“ _I can’t either. Please don’t stop_.”

In her pocket, Shirley’s phone vibrates. Probably Mike, calling her again. Wanting to know what’s going on. But, like Russ’s interjections, Shirley thoroughly ignores it. There will be time to deal with that later, she decides. And, yes, she understands that what Russ is saying is true; they _should_ turn these mics off or at least inform the two women being recorded of what’s going on. Just letting this happen is far from fair. Shirley should be focused on the horror of this whole thing or maybe on being happy for them, even.

This is what they’ve been working towards, after all. All those tense silences and broken stares. All that dancing around the edge of what’s _really_ been going on. And she was right! Of course she was. The fact that the two of them are having sex in the hotel room meant for Dani and her _husband_ is just undeniable proof of this fact. They need to shut this down. Soon. Before they say anything worse than they already have.

Something like—

“ _Like...L-Like when I imagine it’s you. Just like that_.”

Yeah. Something like that.

“Shirley,” says Russ. “Seriously.”

“I know, I know.” She flaps another hand at him and turns her attention to the mixer, to the monitor, to all these controls she understands only _vaguely._ There are too many buttons, too many options, and she doesn’t know where to begin. She looks back up at Russ and nods towards the whole thing. “Turn them off,” she says and the relief that floods his expression at the command is short-lived. It slides away the moment he actually clocks the complexity of the equipment they’re looking at.

“I don’t—” he starts, bending at the waist to fiddle with the mixer. “How do I—?”

“I thought you knew,” says Shirley.

“No, I don’t. It’s not my job to—”

He messes with something that makes a new window pop up on the monitor screen the mixer is attached to. Most of it looks like random setting knobs, some of the colorful bars bouncing along with the moaning still playing through the headset.

She pushes him out of the way, intending to take over and fix whatever new mess he’s caused, but she doesn’t get the chance. As he is thrown off balance, Russ tries to catch himself on the cart, but can’t quite manage it. Instead, all he really manages to do is unplug a few cords on his way down.

“Wait,” says Shirley as he rights himself on a nearby chair. “I think that did it.”

Russ blinks at her, dazzled by optimistic confusion. “Really?”

She nods and pulls her now-quiet headset off, letting it dangle around her neck. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get a chance to confirm it for him because, at that moment, a loud moan can be heard at full volume coming directly out of the mixing equipment. 

No headset required.

At once, the others in the room freeze—too caught and startled to do more than stare at the source of the sound. Panic laces its fingers through the fine bones of Shirley’s ribcage and her breath catches. 

“ _Shit_ ,” she breathes and Russ nods helplessly as they, like everyone else, stare at the sound cart in helpless, abject alarm.

“ _Christ. Right there._ ”

Carl slides down into the nearest chair, limp and horrified. He covers his face with his hands. A few of the others whisper something to one another, but Shirley and Russ are too struck to notice. In fact, that seems to be the response of choice to the things being broadcast to the entire room in the voice of their friend and coworker. 

Shirley imagines herself in a courtroom, staring down a crew of lawyers. Having to make eye contact with them as she attempts to explain how she wound up recording her subordinate having sex with a subject. How that recording ended up being heard by everyone working on the show.

“What the hell’s going on?” a gruff voice asks near the doorway of the conference room.

It’s Horace, who must have been elsewhere until this exact moment, and Shirley can see, quite plainly, her own hysterical mortification reflected back at her from his expression. 

No one has an answer for him. They are all too busy trying to wake themselves up from this nightmare, sink into the ground, or pretend they are somewhere else. Shirley, herself, is attempting some delirious combination of the three.

“ _Yes! Like that, Dani,_ **_fuck_ ** _._ ”

And, well...Jamie certainly has good timing.

“Wait,” says Horace.

“T-the mics,” says Russ.

“Oh. Oh, dammit, Shirley!” comes Horace’s last words before he hurries back out of the room, leaving the rest of them standing right where they are.

_______

Here is the thing about getting what you want: there is always a catch. There has to be. And Jamie has suspected this to be true for as long as she’s been alive, but she doesn’t really learn it until she is standing alone in a hotel room that is not her own, trembling knees and messy hair with Horace not making eye contact with her. 

Dani is gone. Long gone, really. Up the hall and away and it’s funny, really, because Jamie can still feel the press of her lips to her skin. She can still remember the heat of Dani’s tongue between her legs and the way her hand trailed up her ribs, how she pressed her fingertips into the dips of Jamie’s hip bones. 

She wants to slip into the floor and disappear. Melt away from the face of the earth. Or else go back into the hotel room—to the bed she and Dani just _had sex_ on—and hide beneath the covers. Wait this out. Deal with it in the morning. Maybe by then she’ll have been able to forget about the fact that everyone she works with has probably just heard her and Dani...oh, God. 

Don’t think about that right now.

But: Dani’s hands in her hair, her lips against her shoulder. The way her chest rose and fell, her heart hammering in her chest just as hard as it had been during that first kiss in Santorini. Like it probably had been that night in the alleyway when Jamie left her standing there. Alone.

Like she is right now.

And, _goddamnit_ , Jamie isn’t going to let her be alone in this no matter the cost to herself. She’s promised herself she never would. 

“Jamie,” says Horace, keeping his voice a whisper so that he doesn’t startle her. “It’s—”

She isn’t sure what he’s going to say. She doesn’t give him the chance to say it.

She just says, “Horace, I can’t— Just…” and then steps around him and starts off purposefully in the direction Dani’s only just gone. If he follows, she doesn’t turn around to see. There are other things for her to worry about, other problems to send her into a panic.

For instance: Shirley standing at the base of the stairs, staring at Jamie like she’s never seen her before as she gets closer. Behind her is Russ, looking even more dismantled than Shirley does. He, at least, seems to know better than to try for eye contact.

“Jamie,” says Shirley and Jamie is so _tired_ of sentences starting out that way. She’s so tired of _everything_ —all of it. She wants to go somewhere very, very far away for a hundred years or else disappear entirely.

“Where is she?” Jamie asks, cutting Shirley off before she can say anything else.

Shirley isn’t expecting this. She blinks. “Where is…?” she starts, but Jamie just gives her a scathing look and turns her attention to Russ.

“Did Dani come through here?” she tries.

Russ meets her eyes for exactly two seconds before his gaze drops away again. It’s brief, yes, but enough to convey the sympathy rolling off of him in drowning spades. “She...I think I saw her go outside,” he offers.

Footsteps on the grand staircase behind her. Horace on the way. There are too many things to be scared of right now, too many questions swirling around in Jamie’s head, making it hard to focus. One thing at a time.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”

And then she’s walking past them and making her way to the main exit, through the lobby, and out into the cool, November night. The parking lot is empty, save for the silent cars standing statuesque in their places. No sign of Dani anywhere. There’s a set of stairs at the edge of it, stone painted white, that leads down to the shore and Jamie remembers the taste of salt at the back of her throat back in Santorini, Dani’s chapstick waxy on her lips as she watched Edmund lead her away.

Always away.

And all Jamie can do is chase after her.

The sand is thick and cold, breaking apart in clumps beneath the soles of her trainers to the sound of the relentless tide, slipping up the shore to linger a beat. To retreat. To slip back into the darkness it came from. What an odd thing to feel called to: the roaring ocean too dark to see. No light save for the streetlamps up the road. Behind. 

It slices into her chest so deeply she can do nothing but stand there, remembering the way Dani shook her arm off in order to get away. In order to flee. She stares out at the ink-spill of the black ocean and imagines drowning, imagines sailing somewhere far, far away and never returning.

Something touches her shoulder and Jamie nearly jerks out of her skin, scared to death for the tiniest second as she wheels around to find Dani standing there. Just beside her. Hand still outstretched despite Jamie’s pulling away. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles and Jamie takes in the sight of her as she lets her heart settle back down. 

She’s a mess, really, her expression some blurry watercolor of fear and hurt and devastation. Jamie knows the feeling. Her eyes are shimmering a little in what little light there is and her clothes are rumpled from being put on too quickly. 

“It’s okay,” Jamie breathes, even though it isn’t. “Just...try not to sneak up on people you’re running away from next time.”

A joke. Ill-timed. Doesn’t land right.

Isn’t meant to.

Dani shakes her head and takes a step forward, but doesn’t touch her. Instead, she drops her hand away as she says, “Jamie, I wasn’t trying to—”

But enough lollygagging already. Enough dancing around the point of things. Touching what they really want and letting it scare them off. 

Jamie can’t do it anymore. She’s so, so tired.

“Why did you run?” she says, a whisper, and, if the words chill her, then they numb Dani solid. “Why is it always you running and me...chasing after you?”

“It isn’t,” Dani says, but it’s clear from the way she’s trembling that she knows exactly what Jamie is talking about. She knows that everything has been fucked since that first kiss and that it could never be anything _but_ given the circumstances; it isn’t like Jamie doesn’t love her 

( _oh she does she does has never wanted anyone else_ )

because she does. It’s that—like so many of the goddamn couples she’s seen on this show—they can’t seem to stop fighting each other long enough to _be_ in love.

Dani has her arms hugged around her stomach now, eyes fixed on the ground. If Jamie weren’t trying to be a stronger person, a _better_ person, a person who thinks about herself and her own needs too, she might bridge the gap between them and pull Dani into her arms. Kiss her. Never let her go again.

But she is. So she doesn’t.

There’s something in her chest about this: the end of the rope.

“What am I supposed to do, Jamie?” Dani asks, a strange echo of that night in her flat; falling to pieces in front of the camera while Jamie fought every instinct in her body to not just sweep her away from it all. “They...It’s over now, isn’t it? My marriage...the...The whole thing. They...Everyone is going to know...my friends, my...coworkers. Edmund’s family. My _mom_ . This show is going to air and everything is going to be over. I won’t be able to...get _away_ from this.”

“From this?” says Jamie, so scared of the answer that she almost doesn’t ask the more important question: “Or from me?”

Something in Dani’s expression changes; some light from some back room flickering off-off-out. “That’s not what I…” she tries, but: “The room was _miked_ , Jamie. We might as well have just...fucked in the middle of the street.”

And the curse comes out wrong, the angle too sharp. It looks like Dani has to struggle to get it out at all.

“They won’t _use_ any of it,” Jamie tells her. “It was an accident. You saw Horace’s face. It’s not like they _meant_ for this to happen.”

It’s a hard defense to stick herself to considering how thickly her blood boils at the memory of Shirley’s nonchalant posture at the base of the stairs. Saying Jamie’s name like everything could be fixed, smoothed over, just like that. Like she could get either of them out of this scarless and safe. 

“It doesn’t matter!” says Dani, and her voice has a keen edge of distress to it. “You said yourself that Shirley already...She knew _before_ this, Jamie. You don’t think she’s just been...setting this up? Waiting for it to break? And we just...gave her what she wanted. We—” She huffs out a breath, nostrils flared and turns her head, swiping helplessly at some of the tears tracking down her jaw. “ _Fuck_.”

“That’s about the gist of it, yeah,” says Jamie, humorless and biting. It grabs Dani’s attention again, makes her look at Jamie like she is a stranger after all. “You signed up for this, Dani. You’re not just some...helpless victim here. You _knew_ that by coming onto this show you were opening yourself up to having your private life screamed out to anyone with a cable subscription.”

“That was before I knew what that meant,” Dani defends. “Before you and I—”

She gestures between them, but doesn’t finish the thought.

Jamie bites the inside of her cheek too hard. Clenches her fists at her side. “Say it. For _once_.”

The request here, the moment, feels enormous. Stretched too far and too wide—thinning out in a pulling apart until the threads begin to tear. Until there’s nothing left of it at all; just a gaping, torn hole leading to nothing and nowhere. 

But Dani doesn’t answer. She doesn’t finish the thought. Of course she doesn’t.

“So what do you want to do, Dani?” Jamie asks, blood buzzing in her ears. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I don’t know,” Dani whispers and Jamie wants to collapse at her feet and say, _i’ll take whatever you have left please whatever you’re not using give me anything give be_ **_something_ **. “I don’t know, Jamie.”

Jamie breaks. Has she ever been whole? She takes two steps forward until her knees are brushing against Dani’s and then leans in, presses their foreheads together. At once, Dani reaches out and curls her fingers around the backs of Jamie’s elbows, pulling her closer. 

Permission. Allowance. Not everything, no. But something.

The ache in Jamie’s stomach widens, desperation reaching a fever-pitch as she fists her hands into the fabric of Dani’s shirt at her hips. She wants to stay. Wants to dig her nails in and never ever let Dani go again. Wants to _take and take and take_ , but that is Edmund’s job, that brand of determined love, restrictive and bitter and _permitted_.

“Tell me to stop,” she whispers. “Tell me you don’t want this. That you don’t want me. Don’t love me. Please.”

Dani’s breath flutters against her chin. Minty. Clean. Jamie remembers the curl of their bodies together on the mattress. Remembers that afternoon all those weeks back, her chin leaned on the wooden floor of Dani’s deck, looking up at her as she smiled and laughed, fingers gripping the book in her hand, all thoughts of the future, of the show, of anything but that _moment_ drifting away like pale ghosts.

“I’ve never...I’ve never said I don’t love you,” Dani says slowly.

It would be easier, Jamie thinks, if she had. If Dani were deliberately cruel. If she was willfully malicious—the sort of person to leave you in the dust without a word, without reason—because then, perhaps, she could hate her. Perhaps she could shun her. Run away—or try to.

But Dani is not cruel. Never by intention. There are times when her teeth are sharp and she is filled to the brim with the shaking thunder of a storm. She is tired and she is trapped and she keeps who she really is, what she really wants, far from her heart because to do otherwise would be to lose it all. The nature of the person she has allowed herself to be is to let these desires, these wishes, smolder and fester and be swallowed whole. That is the price. It is the essence of the person the cameras—her mothers; her coworkers, Edmund—know to be crushed beneath the suffocating weight on Dani’s shoulders that she will never allow herself to be free from.

Jamie pulls her closer, their lips so close but not quite touching. Not yet. “Then tell me you’d rather have _him_. Tell me why we’re not worth fighting for.”

“Jamie,” Dani breathes, quivering lips brushing against Jamie’s as she speaks. “I can’t just—”

“If you’re going to keep running...if this isn’t something you can face, I need you to end it.” She tightens her grip impossibly in Dani’s shirttail. Closes her eyes because she can’t stand to look into Dani’s tear-filled ones anymore without the sight cracking her resolve asunder. “I need you to tell me if this is done. If we’re done. I know my place, I _do,_ and I know yours. I know that you’re scared. I am, too. But I can’t keep holding my breath.”

One of Dani’s hands come up, sliding across Jamie’s shoulder, fingertips brushing against an errant curl. “I don’t—”

“I love you,” Jamie says. “More than I’ve ever loved anything in my life. And I know it’s selfish...that it’s asking too much, but please...close the door for me. Because I can’t do this anymore.

Dani’s fingers curl into Jamie’s hair. She’s crying and Jamie wants to kiss away each tear. “I can’t. I don’t know how,” she admits, a sob breaking apart the words. “I don’t know what to do.”

This is her _person_. This is the woman who has held her and touched her and always, always kissed her back. This is the first and only person Jamie has ever really loved. Who closes her eyes and tightens her hold like they’re one in the same, like she’s trying her hardest to pull Jamie into herself.

“Come away with me, then. Anywhere. Let’s just run away.”

This is _it_. This is everything Jamie has ever wanted, wanting her in return, and all she can do is ask for something she knows will never happen.

“We’ll live on the shores of Liguria or open a flower shop in the states,” she says and Dani pulls her closer, lets out a watery laugh at the thought and hope bites into the harsh hollow of Jamie’s chest. “Somewhere else. Where people don’t have televisions and don’t give a fig about reality TV anyway. Where they won’t know you. Won’t know us. I love you, Dani. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Jay,” Dani whispers and there is a blessed moment where Jamie thinks she is going to say yes; that she is going to tilt her chin down and kiss her again and she waits, she wants, because she has kissed Dani dozens of times by now or more and she has never gotten it right. 

But she will this time. She will never get it wrong again.

She feels the exact moment that Dani begins to fade. The moment that she makes a decision. It’s always the same. The hand on her neck tenses and then slides away. The one still at her waist clenches into a fist for a moment and then releases. Jamie keeps her own hands where they are, trying to make it last as long as she can. The forehead touching her own moves back and she begins to feel very, very cold.

Dani wipes discreetly at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt and takes a steadying breath, meeting Jamie’s eyes. They are soft still, but Jamie has a feeling they will harden in the coming moments. “We can’t just run away from this,” she says.

“That’s a first,” says Jamie, too harsh but Dani doesn’t even wince.

“I’m still married, Jamie. I’m still...I’ve been cheating on my husband and I...How is all of this going to look when this show airs?” She shakes her head, glancing away for a moment. “It can’t end like this. I can’t _do_ this.”

“But you want to.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want right now.”

Jamie runs her eyes over Dani’s face and waits. For Dani to kiss her, touch her, claim her again with her hands and her teeth and her mouth as she did just an hour before. But she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t.

Because Jamie was never hers to claim, just as she was never Jamie’s. She has spent these last two months as someone else’s _wife_ and so that is what she has to be right now.

Jamie raises her hand to cup Dani’s cheek, to run her thumb against her soft skin and wonder at the way that, despite her words, Dani still leans into it. “It matters to me,” she says.

Fingers catch her wrist and pull her hand away. “You asked me to end this,” says Dani, not _her_ Dani. “I can’t just...I can’t do it this way. Eddie doesn’t...deserve this.”

And maybe Jamie understands that, but it doesn’t mean that heat doesn’t flare in her chest, sliding up her neck and behind her ears. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t pull away until there is space between them again. 

“But I do?” she asks. “Eddie doesn’t deserve for things to end like this, but _I_ do?”

Dani’s expression hardens. She straightens her spine. “That isn’t what—”

“Isn’t what you meant?” Jamie asks. “Because it really feels that way.”

“I _married_ him, Jamie. I’m still married to him, whether I’m wearing the wedding band or not, and you and I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t,” Jamie breathes. Her eyes are closed. The knuckles on her fists are whitened with tension she is trying very desperately to bite back. “Don’t make it sound like a mistake.”

“Jamie, it shouldn’t have happened like... _this_.”

She opens her eyes to find Dani standing before her, tired and torn and looking for all the world like she doesn’t mean a word of what she’s just said. “Maybe not,” Jamie says. “Maybe it shouldn’t have, Dani, but it _did_ . It did and not just once. It’s been happening this entire time and it had nothing to do with Eddie. It had nothing to do with anything other than my being in love with you. Your…” She hesitates a moment because, though she has known it all the time, she has never said what comes next. “Your being in love with _me_.”

The mask Dani is wearing falters and the real her shines through again, staggered by the truth of what has finally been said. Jamie doesn’t know what should come next so she stays still and furious and broken because, despite it all, Dani is her best fucking friend and Jamie is _so_ in love with her.

“I can’t go back to pretending like this isn’t real. I can’t just...” She takes a breath and holds it, maintaining Dani’s steady gaze. “I can’t watch you go back to him. Choose him... _again_.”

“I’m not asking you to,” says Dani.

“Then what are you asking me?” says Jamie.

Dani deflates impossibly further, but she does not look away. “I’m asking for...more time. For a break,” she says. “To...figure this all out.”

Jamie does not say: _what is there to figure out_?

She does not say: _more time, more time, is that all_?

And Jamie has never been shot before, no, but she imagines it would probably feel a lot like _this_ ; she has never seen Dani look like this and she doesn’t ever want to see it again. Not _ever_.

“Why does it feel like you’re breaking up with me?” she asks, and fights back the part of her that feels like it’s slipping. She can still feel the ghost of Dani’s warmth against her body, can still feel the flick of her tongue against the backs of her teeth, can still taste her perfume. But she’s so exhausted. She’s in love and humiliated and now _this_. She wants to scream, she wants to cry, she wants to—

She wants to say _no_. She wants to tell Dani that they can do this without hurting one another, but she knows this woman better than she’s ever known anyone and it’s clear that she’s already made up her mind.

Dani doesn’t answer. She just stands there, some unreadable expression on her face.

So, Jamie says, “Okay,” because she doesn’t have anything left in her.

_______

What Jamie says the moment she sees Horace, waiting for her at the hotel doors: “I need a right to the station.”

What Horace says in response: “What?”

The further she gets from the place she left Dani standing on the shore, the more it twinges and aches. Jamie thinks that this is rather unfair. Shouldn’t space be the remedy; shouldn’t distance _help_ make her whole again? But, no.

She isn’t whole. She’s leaving the most fragile pieces of herself in with Dani.

“Could you get my bags, too? Please?” 

She’s not even looking at him while she asks it, too busy stepping into the hotel lobby and looking around for any sign of Shirley. Horace comes up behind her and is still for a long moment, but he doesn’t protest or ask for further clarification.

He just says, “Yeah, of course,” and then, “She’s at the bar, I think,” before stepping around her with a slight brush of his hand on her shoulder, and heading toward the designated HQ, where her things are probably lying in wait.

The bar is part of the restaurant where Edmund and Dani finished only half their dinner and it’s getting late but it is by no means empty. That being said, it does look like a good majority of the patrons are crew. Jamie stands in the doorway for a long moment until her eyes land on a familiar head of curly hair sitting at the bar and half-slumped over a drink. She is the portrait of similar distress and this makes Jamie irrationally upset for some reason she refuses to name; Shirley is far from the victim here.

Like Jamie is. Like Dani is.

There is no victim, she tells herself. There is no victim and it is no one’s fault.

But if it were, Jamie thinks it would be Shirley’s.

And there are better ways to do it, but she can’t make herself care. She just sidles up to where Shirley is sitting and says, “I quit,” with as much force as she can muster.

Shirley’s eyes flick up to see her standing there at once, a vaguely disoriented expression on her face. “Wha—?” she begins, but Jamie shakes her head at her.

“Y’know, I always thought you were just a little batty,” she says. “I thought, hey: she’s just doing her job. No harm, no foul. But this, Shirley?” She scoffs and shakes her head. Can’t even _look_ at the other woman. “This is _beyond_ anything I—”

“I would have thought my A1 would at least _remember_ miking an entire room,” Shirley retorts, but the words have almost no venom in them. They flop around uselessly like a puppet missing too many strings. Whatever fight Shirley usually has in her is nowhere in sight.

But Jamie will not let herself confuse disregard for conquest.

“If you’ll recall,” says Jamie, “I _didn’t_. Your A2 did.” As she speaks she nods to the doorway of the restaurant where Horace is standing, watching the exchange cautiously with Jamie’s bag slung over his shoulder. 

Shirley sits up a little straighter, rolling her shoulders back. “If _you’ll_ recall,” she says, “we have an unspoken but very strict no fraternization rule during production. A rule that you have been breaking this entire season.”

“A _rule_ you only care about when it suits you. When you’re filming it and using it for God-only-knows what,” Jamie bites, as if she truly expects to be heard. “And then the moment I actually call you on your shit, I’ve been making some grievous error the whole time. Is that it?”

Shirley is struck. This is a Jamie she hasn’t seen before, a Jamie that even Jamie herself doesn’t want to see. Their argument has garnered the attention of some of the other patrons, almost all of them coworkers of some sort. Her worst fears are confirmed very simply: when she looks at a few of them and they are all very quick to look away. 

“I have been _trying_ to help you,” Shirley says, a new tactic, apparently, since the last one didn’t do the trick. “It’s _your_ story I’ve been wanting to tell. Yours and Dani’s. And now that her and Edmund have called it quits, I _can_.”

“Who asked for your help, Shirley?” Jamie asks. Her breath snags in a quiet sob, anger boiling and roaring in her veins, curdling in her stomach. “All it’s done is make Dani terrified of this stupid fucking show. Of you. Of—” She breaks here, tries to ground herself without much luck. “Of me,” she finishes.

A lesson Shirley must have learned at some point: there is no use in firing upon a fallen enemy.

“Jamie,” she says very, very softly. “That wasn’t my intention.”

Jamie’s breath stutters to surrender. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, wavering in and out of existence like mist on a flushed-dew morning. “It doesn’t matter what you _meant_ by it. That’s what happened.” 

“We can still tell this story,” Shirley tries. “It’s not like we don’t have the footage for it. We can still scrape this into something.”

She’s pleading now, like anything she’s offering is what Jamie is looking for. Jamie doesn’t even _know_ what she’s looking for. The damage is already done.

Hot and burning around her nape, shaking with—with something. It’s all too much. She can still taste Dani’s breath on her chin, the heat of her forehead against her own, those fingers clenching in her hair like she would keep Jamie there by her claws if she could just get a good enough hold. And now— 

“Go to hell, Shirley,” and it’s said without any malice. Without anger or venom or anything other than bitter resignation.

She leaves then. What else can she do?

_______

There are things she does: she lets Horace drive her to the station; she sits on a train for a very long time; she lets herself into her flat and sits down on her couch waiting for reality to hit her, waiting for anything and everything and all of it. 

There are things she does _not_ do: check her phone; cry; scream; fight this anymore.

 _Time,_ she thinks. More and more of it.

She goes on. She will always go on.

Such is the only expectation that can be readily met.

_______

Now that it is as good as done—as good as over—and Dani is probably back in London but out of sight and out of mind, everything is very quiet. It’s as if these last two months have been lived in a different room—one separated and disconnected from the real world. As if she is merely haunting the halls of someone she used to be. You could pass your hand right through her.

Dani does not call. She does not text. Neither does Jamie. It’s better that way.

Unemployment fits her like a borrowed suit. It hangs from her limbs and trips her up. She thinks, perhaps, that she would try to pin it up, try to hem it out of the way, if she could bring herself to care about doing much of anything beyond existing.

She thinks of Dani, of course.

Always Dani, Dani, Dani.

How close she’d been; how _near_ to getting what she’s wanted all this time. The _only_ thing she’s wanted, maybe. But she is alone again.

Still, she can do this. That’s what she tells herself.

Because, yes, it hurts. Yes, of course she aches and longs for things to be simple and easy; for morality to be black-and-white and to puzzle-snap things into place.

She tells herself: getting through it will be much easier this time around.

She tells herself: you already know the steps.

Because she’s been doing this the whole time. She has known the ache, the mourning, then _nothing_. She’s gone through every bleeding, splintered step already. She has loved from a distance, been forced to shoulder the pain of it and keep moving forward. She has been outside of herself in a sea of people, no reason, no way 

( **_I do_ ** _, and Dani’s hands were shaking, their eyes met for a moment and Jamie had been waiting for something that never came—nothing save for the roaring ocean waves in her chest, that stormy, briny sea drowning her again and again as she stumbled her way through the reception, mechanical and practiced and completely mindless_ )

to be free of them. She has lain in her bed, in the dark, and imagined another life she could never live, another body

( _touching her own, pretending her hands were not her own, that they belonged to another—shorter fingers, softer palms—slipping down her chest, down her stomach, holding her other hand over her mouth, and keeping it there as she sobbed and cried after—as she couldn’t stop crying_ )

she could inhabit in another world entirely.

This time, the steps are halved. No hiding in the corners of someone else’s honeymoon. No slipping away for a smoke just so she could have _one moment_ of peace. One second with no husband to take pity on. No affair to entertain in the shadows.

Dani needs time. Jamie will give it to her. _Has_ to give it to her. Has already given everything else.

All the better, she tells herself. Less to lose. Less to mourn. Less to _have_.

Back to that widening cavern of nothing. Back to the stormy waves cresting in the ache. Back to 

( _the shell and the hollow and the lines scripted from the stage of a tragedy_ )

what she knows.

_______

Trish’s text on the second night back:

[ **7:32 PM** ] _What the hell happened??_

Jamie stops stirring the pasta sauce she’s heating up on the stove and stares at the text blankly. If there’s a concise way to explain it all, Jamie cannot fathom it. And because she is hurt still and trying to settle—because she is not above being a _child_ about having her heart broken—she texts back, _why don’t you ask Dani_ , and presses send.

The message stays read for a few minutes. Jamie returns to stirring her sauce. Tries to keep it from burning. Finally:

[ **7:37 PM** ] _I’m asking you_.

[ **7:37 PM** ] _And she’s not talking_.

Unanticipated: news from the Front.

 _a lot of things_ , Jamie says, _but it’s officially not my job anymore_.

[ **7:38 PM** ] _What does that mean?_

Jamie thinks about that. Considers which truth Trish is fishing for.

The sauce bubbles messily in the pot, splattering over the stainless steel top of the oven. There are a lot of things to consider. Whether or not that conversation on the beach was an actual _end_ to this at the forefront of it all. It feels like it is. She’s been trying to prepare herself for the worst, but the trouble is that if Dani were to show up at her door in the next handful of seconds, asking Jamie to try again, to _keep_ loving her, then—

Game over.

And it’s something to feel you have no agency over even yourself. Makes her feel cornered. Stinging. 

Her answer comes as a simplified version of her first response:

 _ask Dani_.

_______

It takes six rings for Horace to answer, voice filled with gravel as he says, “Hey, kid. You okay?”

He is inside his house and she is not which means he can’t see her, but she shakes her head anyway. Shakes it to clear it off the oppressive fog; to shrug away the thick layer of frost flooding her veins; to answer for her because even the thought of speaking hurts.

But it doesn’t work that way, and there is no use in lying when she is standing outside his house at eleven o’clock at night. She says, “No,” as strongly as she can manage. Listens to Horace take a rough breath and clear his throat. A rustling noise that sounds like him moving around.

And it should feel strange, coming to him so belatedly for this, but she can’t trust herself to be alone anymore and Owen is _busy_ , wouldn’t have time for something as silly as this, and Trish is—

“What can I do?” comes his next question. “Jamie, how can I help?”

It doesn’t feel strange. In the years they’ve known one another—all those hours working side-by-side in all weather, in all situations, in _everything_ —he is family. 

“Can you...come to your front door?” she asks, closing her eyes against the tears threatening to fall. “I don’t—”

— _have anywhere else to go_.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Just one second.”

She hears footsteps next, hurrying down what sounds like a staircase and then the line goes dead, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because his door is opening and he’s there in his pajamas, looking for all the world like every father she’s ever wished she had.

“Oh, kid.” He shakes his head and reaches out for her, tentative because they are close, yes, and affectionate, but this is something else entirely. 

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she whispers.

“Here, Jamie. You can always come here.”

And Jamie knew that before, but she _knows_ it now, and so when Horace pulls her into his arms, she doesn’t hesitate to finally let herself break.

_______

There is tea, made by a pajama and robe-clad Clara, and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders by Horace as she sits in their living room. Horace sits in a chair beside the sofa and Clara sits down directly beside Jamie, rubbing soothing circles between her shoulder blades.

They had a daughter once. Horace has only mentioned her a handful of times over the years. She was young when they lost her and they have not moved on, so there are only a few pictures of her on the mantle, on the walls, but Jamie can feel her in the way they’re looking at her. In how they’re handling her with such sheltering care. 

She has sensed this before when she’s come over for dinner or Horace’s weekly poker night with his friends—who delight in losing money to her because she’s half their age and an alien to them, which blends everything she does or says into some mix of fascination and amusement. But this is different. 

There is a ghost in this room and she is ten-years old and wishing for a family like this one.

Jamie tastes her on the roof of her mouth as her heart pounds beneath her tongue. Thinks about parentage and marriage and desolation.

“Are you doin’ alright?” Horace asks, and Clara gives him a stern look from Jamie’s side, as if saying:

 _Never, never ask that_.

The next thing he says is, “You don’t have to answer that.”

Jamie shakes her head. “I just…I thought quitting a-and leaving would make it easier somehow. Like, if I didn’t have to _see_ her it would be…” she trails off, voice rough from crying. “I messed up, Horace.”

The tea burns the tip of her tongue. The ghost slides out of view.

“I’m sorry for...for just...waking you guys up and coming over here and—” is what she says next, but then those circles are back, Clara’s hand warm and light.

“Don’t worry about that,” she says. “Don’t give it a thought.”

If only it were that easy.

“We never got to do the whole...first heartbreak thing with...” Horace gruffs, bittersweet and saccharine. “You’re no imposition.”

Another ache. “Thank you,” Jamie says. Has never meant anything more in her life.

Anything but—

( _it matters to me_ )

(Don’t think about that.)

The mention of their daughter has made Clara go still. It takes a moment for her to come back into herself enough to offer the guest room for the night, Horace nodding along. She agrees. Says _thank you_ again. Says _thank you_ quite a bit because she’s been alone, _alone_ in all of this and now she is sitting on a sofa with two daughterless parents who are trying so desperately to make things right on her behalf.

_______

That night, she sleeps. She dreams of a windless shore and feels breath on her face the way that you feel in dreams, except she doesn’t open her eyes. 

Knows she is near the ocean by only the crashing of the waves on the sand. Knows she is not alone only by the gentle touch of lips against her own, whispering apologies over and over in complete silence.

_______

“You have a visitor,” says Clara when she sees Jamie the next morning, fresh from the shower and wearing an old sweater belonging to her hostess. It is covered in the faded print of _Veggietales_ characters, lined up in a row. 

“A visitor?” says Jamie, one hand resting on the banister. 

It is late enough that Horace is already gone for work. Her phone is a dead brick in her back pocket, but she can guess at the hour given the angle of the sun as it slants through the windows of the foyer, tall and slender on either side of the front door.

Clara nods. “He’s in the living room,” she says and, before Jamie can ask who it is, she turns and is gone, having only been standing at the base of the stairs to share this message. 

It isn’t until she has disappeared back into the kitchen that Jamie moves. Finishes climbing down the stairs. Turns her feet in the direction of the living room and practically tiptoes her way into it, as if trying to catch her visitor off guard.

She is not certain what she is expecting exactly, but she knows what she is _not_ expecting and that is what she finds:

Edmund, sitting stiffly on the sofa she’d been comforted on the night before. 

When he catches sight of her standing there, he is not the fire-eyed Romeo she might have anticipated, coming by to give her a piece of his mind. Instead, she is met by the sight of a slump-shouldered, defeated man whose face looks drawn in the morning sun. He gets to his feet as she comes to a halt just in the doorway.

“Hey, Jamie.”

He has remembered her name. Jamie notes this very bitterly and then scolds herself because that can hardly be the most startling part of this interaction.

The worst is yet to come.

She’s sure of it.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, then grimaces at the way it sounds. “Sorry. I just…” But there really is no other way to say it: “What are you doing here?”

Edmund nods. Her bafflement has not surprised him. “I, uh...I wanted to talk to you,” he says. “And…the other guy—”

“Horace,” she finishes.

“Yeah, Horace, he...He said you were here.”

The betrayal makes a notch in her lungs. Makes the next breath catch a bit. “Well...I am.”

Another nod. “Right, yeah, I...I can see that.” They stare at one another and then he gestures to the couch. “Do you want to...um…”

She goes to the armchair instead and sits down on it primly. Watches as Edmund blinks and then sinks back down to his previous seat. “What is there to talk about?” she prods, sick of the silence, and she’s not playing _dumb_ , per se. She is merely asking to know what it is that he knows.

Making sure they are on the same page.

“Dani,” he says very simply because it always comes back to her. “She, um...She told me what...what happened. What’s _been_ happening.”

Another surprise: there is little soreness in his voice or expression. Almost no traces of self-pity at all.

Just an eagerness to catch up. To understand. Maybe even to make things right.

Whatever _right_ can mean these days.

“Okay,” Jamie manages. What else is there?

“She’s a…” He shakes his head, gathering his thoughts. “She was a mess when she got back from...Yeah. She still is and I thought at first it was because she...because she wanted to fix things. Between _us_. But…”

 _It wasn’t_.

This goes unspoken, but, oh, the way it loosens the vice-like grip around Jamie’s heart. It cannot unshackle her entirely, but some of the weight has been lifted.

Just a little.

“But what?” she asks. Has to know.

There is likely a very uncomplicated answer to this question. Jamie is sure of it. But Edmund insists upon being difficult: fixes his eyes on her own and leans his elbows on his knees, laces his fingers together. 

“At our wedding,” he says, “her mother, she...She said something to me that I don’t think I understood at the time. Dani was...she was talking to my parents and her mom, she said, ‘I’m so glad she’s married a man like you. For a while, I was worried she never would.’”

Jamie swallows thickly, _focuses_. Something in his gaze has sent the floor beneath her feet shifting and changing; the chill air of the house swallowing them both, pressing into them on all sides and leaving them trapped in this moment, in this fragile understanding.

“I think, at the time, I thought...She’s just had some bad relationships. Her mom was just worried about it,” Edmund continues. “But...then, when we talked about it, it turned out that Dani _hasn’t_ really had any relationships in the past. So then I thought...Maybe her mom was afraid she’d be alone. But now I know that she was more worried about Dani _not_ being alone.”

Jamie isn’t sure what to make of him: this man sitting in front of her who she has never let herself know. He is gentle. Kind. Retrospective. This is what she is trying to wrap her head around: he is what she sees when she looks in the mirror. Some lost, hyperbolic self drifting and bouncing against the walls of a container much too small. 

“She chose to get married,” Jamie tells him. Needs to remind herself. “No one else made the decision for her.”

“I know,” says Edmund. “But that doesn’t mean she chose _me_.”

If Jamie had not spent so much of her life in trouble already, she might have been afraid.

As it is, she says, “I’m sorry. For how all of this…”

 _Went down_.

Edmund must know this already. Perhaps even made peace with it in a way that Jamie has not. “I want her to be happy,” he says. 

And: he is not lying. Jamie thinks she would be able to tell if he was. 

Another truth: “I do, too.”

He smiles, then, all white teeths and sunset-pinks over a calm sea. “Then make her happy.”

Jamie sighs. Scrubs a hand over her face. “It’s not that simple,” she says, and then Edmund laughs.

It catches her off guard, this bright display of merriment from the man who’s found her in her darkest hour after tearing piece after piece out of her for weeks without meaning to. She stares at him. Waits for whatever must come next, but it seems that nothing today can follow her expectations.

“You really are perfect for each other,” he says, and the rest of it comes before she can even ask what he means by that:

“Dani said the exact same thing.”

_______

The next question to be asked: _how_ can it be simple?

Telling Shirley off and quitting, leaving Dani standing there alone on that beach: those things were not victories won. They were compulsions. Just like falling in love had been, these are things that Jamie has little choice in and, yes, there is always a choice but if that is true for her, then it is true for others.

There are things she cannot decide for anyone but herself. She has little to lose anymore, least of all some kind of public image. She is the only person there is to disappoint with the way she’s handled everything.

(Don’t be silly; she doesn’t _want_ to be painted as some home-wrecking mistress, but Jamie has spent these last months picking every battle she came across and she _can’t_ anymore.)

Owen may be hurt by being left in the dark, but he will understand.

Her acquaintances or loose friendships kept from her school days won’t give it a second thought. Yes, her resume will be sore from it and she’ll be a risky hire, perhaps—abandoning the issue does not undo its invention—but she’s not thinking about that right now.

She is thinking about the only person she has left to embitter, crafting an apology in her head as she takes the Underground. Steeling herself for whatever she’s going to find waiting for her.

The complex Trish lives in is a nice one. Not too far from Dani’s and Edmund’s. Jamie keeps the screenshotted text conversation from weeks before—Trish’s address typed up in dark contrast to Jamie’s blue messages—open unnecessarily until she is standing by the door. Pressing the button beside Trish’s name beside it.

She waits. Shivers in the cold. There’s no answer.

So she tries again.

Waits some more.

Still no answer.

She is just about to open her phone back up and call her directly when an older woman comes bustling up the street with a few shopping bags in her arms. And it feels like cheating, but Jamie offers to hold them all the same as the woman gets the doors open if only for the free passage it provides.

It doesn’t occur to her that Trish might not be home until she’s standing in front of her door. It is, after all, only seven-thirty on a Thursday night. For all Jamie knows, she could be out with friends or somewhere else. But she’s come all this way and in a little more than thirteen hours, she’s going to be standing in that godforsaken studio again—seeing _Dani_ again at Edmund’s behest—and she needs to see Trish before that happens.

Needs to make things right.

Thankfully, the door opens after only a few knocks.

 _Un_ -thankfully (or _whatever_ the fuck the word for it is; she can’t even form a rational _thought_ ), it isn’t Trish who answers.

It’s Theo.

They stand in front of one another just staring. Neither of them speaking. Jamie’s fist is still raised like she’s going to knock again, level with Theo’s left boob. She drops it silver-quick and takes an anxious step backwards.

“Jamie?” says Theo, like there’s any chance they don’t recognize one another.

“Oh,” says Jamie.

“I didn’t— Sorry, I—” She is wearing a thin, satin-looking robe that is tied very loosely around her body, as if she was in a hurry. She pulls at the edges of it and tries to wrap it tighter, crossing her arms as she goes, trying to hide the obvious and very physical evidence of the temperature.

“Yeah,” says Jamie, eyes on the ceiling now.

“Trish! You, um...Can you come to the door?”

From the distant room somewhere in the flat, Trish calls back, “Just tell them to come back later. And _hurry_. You didn’t even—”

“Oh, my God, Trish,” Theo says next. “Seriously.”

Jamie can’t help but note that it’s a nice change, even for how awkward this entire situation is; she’s not the person put on display for once.

She resists the urge to tell Theo that there are worse things than being caught in the middle of a dalliance by the unexpected arrival coworker. 

Having that coworker tell you that the last twenty or so minutes have been recorded by everyone else you work with, for instance.

There are footsteps coming from the back room and then Trish is there in a baggy t-shirt that barely brushes the middle of her thighs. She is just as disheveled as Theo, who steps back a bit to give her room.

If possible, Trish seems even more surprised to see her than Theo had.

“Jamie?” she says, an echo of Theo’s greeting.

“Apparently,” says Jamie. “I can just—” She jerks a thumb over her shoulder instead of finishing.

Trish throws out a hand like she would physically restrain her if it came to that. “No, don’t!” she says. “I wasn’t...I wasn’t expecting you, but I can…”

Theo forces a polite smile at Jamie. “I’ll just...give you two a minute.” Her eyes dart to Trish and then back. “Good to see you, Jamie.”

“You, too.” Jamie winces at herself, at _everything_ , but then Theo is blessedly disappearing down the hallway Trish has just come from. The moment she’s gone, she turns all of her attention back to Trish and mouths a very animated, “Oh, my god!”

Trish makes this face like she’s trying not to seem too proud of herself. “I know right?” she says softly. “I told you she was real.”

“Yeah, but you forgot to mention that she’s one of the fucking experts!”

“I didn’t know!”

“How do you _not_ know?”

“Not everyone watches your stupid show, Jamie. Check your ego.”

And Jamie laughs for the first time in days. She laughs because Trish is laughing and she’d thought maybe she ruined this, but she didn’t. She didn’t and things can snap right back into place with Trish, apparently, in that way she’s only experienced with Owen before.

But there’s a reason why she’s here. She forces herself to remember it.

“I should have just done this over the phone,” she says. “I don’t like interrupting peoples’ nookie.”

Trish snorts in surprise. “Okay, don’t ever call it that again. Holy shit. Are you twelve?” She grins, bright and easy, and Jamie can feel the tension from the whole trip over here melt away from her shoulders. “And do what?”

Jamie shrugs. “Apologize. I was being a twat before and I—”

“Don’t,” Trish cuts in, her hand coming out to grab Jamie’s arm. “Seriously. It...I shouldn’t have been pushing you to talk to me about it. It was...I should have given you space.”

“You were just trying to help.”

“Yeah, but intent is irrelevant.”

And normally Jamie would laugh at the bold misuse of that phrase. But she can’t help but think of Shirley in the restaurant just days back, calling her prying and meddling ‘guidance’ and thinking Jamie would understand. But she hadn’t. Still doesn’t. Not really, but—

“Did Dani…?” she starts, but she doesn’t have enough courage to finish.

Trish, fortunately, doesn’t need her to. “Yeah,” she says. “She...She told me.”

Jamie nods a bit manically, curls bouncing in front of her eyes from the effort. “Okay, yeah. Right.”

“I had to practically force it out of her.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m—”

“If that sentence was going to end with any variation of ‘sorry,’ shut it.”

Trish presses her lips together, smiling apologetically. They are silent for a long moment, but then Trish steps aside in the doorway, trying to give Jamie room to enter. “Do you want to...come in for a minute?”

And it’s tempting, but:

“I shouldn’t stay. You’ve got company.” 

She wiggles her eyebrows for effect and Trish releases her arm so that she can swat at it instead. 

“Once it’s okay to joke about,” she says, pointing a finger, “I’m never going to let you live the mic thing down. Just...fair warning.”

The thing is: it doesn’t sting like it might have even just a day ago. Before Edmund showed up at Horace’s house just to speak to her. Just to beg her to keep trying. To make Dani happy.

“Fair enough,” Jamie concedes. “But...I’m not sure it’s ever going to be okay to joke about it.”

Trish frowns. “Yeah.” A beat. Then, “Have you heard from Dani? At all?”

Something sharp twinges in Jamie’s chest, but she swallows it down. “No.”

“Well, have you tried to—”

“No,” Jamie says quickly. “I haven’t tried anything. Because she said she wants to take a break. So I’m giving her one.”

“She said that?” Trish asks.

Jamie meets her eyes for only a second and then has to drop her gaze again to hide the moisture collecting in her eyes. “Yeah,” she tells her. “She said that.”

There’s a hint of hesitation in the air. Trish is preparing herself for something and if Jamie has learned anything in the time that she’s been friends with this woman, it’s that she should probably brace herself.

And good thing, too, because:

“You are both so endlessly, frustratingly _stupid_!”

Jamie blinks. “What?”

She didn’t brace herself enough, apparently, because Trish is angry now. _Furious_ , really, and there’s nothing she might have done to prepare herself for that.

“This could have been so _easy_ and instead the two of you have spun it into this fucking _anthology_ of completely unnecessary bullshit.”

“Trish, we—”

“No! If you are going to make me into the goddamn _straight-talking_ best friend in a rom-com, then you are going to shut up and listen to me.”

A note: Jamie has always responded very obediently to pretty women that yell at her.

She shuts up and listens.

“You _love_ each other. _Really_ love each other. Oh, my god, Dani loves you so hard I’ve honestly been worried about her health all week. Do you know how _rare_ that kind of thing is, Jamie?”

Jamie shakes her head, opening her mouth to respond, but Trish darts a hand out and presses her index finger flat to Jamie’s lips. Smushes them goofily and then _shushes_ her.

“It’s super fucking rare, okay? I would commit _murder_ to have someone look at me the way you look at Dani and I would commit _triple homicide_ to love someone enough to look at them the way she looks at you. Why do you _insist_ on punishing yourself for something that should be a fucking _miracle_?”

“I’m not punishing myself,” Jamie says, and she wants to sound _angry_ , but she can’t. Her voice comes out a croak, sad. Dry. And she hates herself for it.

Trish gives her a disbelieving look. “Why else would you—”

“Because I’m not enough! I’m not enough for her. I’m _not_.” She’s breathing heavily now, winded from some imagined marathon she’s been running to this exact moment. Her eyes are wild when they meet Trish’s again. Her ears are ringing and the floor is tilting beneath her feet, so she blinks a few times. Waits for everything to stop spinning.

After a moment, Trish reaches out again and grabs one of Jamie’s fists from her side, cupping it in her hand and coaxing her to loosen it. Jamie’s so sick of crying. She really is. She’s trying not to again.

“Can I ask you something?” Trish asks, voice a whisper. Jamie doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to. “Has Dani ever said that you aren’t enough? Even once?”

Jamie doesn’t answer.

“Do you think she’s a liar?”

This gets her attention, at least, and she looks up, shocked. “No! She’s not—”

“So why can’t you just...believe what she’s been proving to you all this time.”

Jamie yanks her hand away. “Shut _up_ ,” she mumbles, half-hoping that Trish hasn’t heard it. Not really meaning it.

“You’re a catch, Jamie,” Trish says. “You _are_. You’re sharp and caring and too clever for your own good.” She cracks a grin. “You nearly send me tripping over myself every time I see you.”

“Just stop,” is all Jamie can say once she can breathe again, but her voice sounds even more pathetic than it did before. “I’m not...I’m not anyone’s first choice and I _shouldn’t_ be. There’s...You’re one of the only people I haven’t run off, and that’s not for lack of trying.”

Trish shakes her head. “Babe, if you narrow your world down to the person standing in front of you, it’s always going to seem smaller than it is.” 

Jamie looks up at her. Loving her. Hating her. Wanting this to be _over_ already.

“Then what?” she asks because she’s back to square one. “What am I supposed to do?”

And Trish softens then. Leans forward a bit. “You know what I’m gonna say.”

And the thing is:

“Yeah,” says Jamie, built to love. “Yeah, I do.”

_______

Walking into the studio the next morning feels a lot like having a target on her back. Or, really, in the middle of her face. Just getting to it had been bad enough, going down all those halls filled with people she worked with for years, though she’s not sure if anyone was actually staring at her or if she’s just being paranoid. She’s kept her eyes down for the most part, not really looking up to do much other than make sure she wasn’t about to run into a wall or something.

Now, though, she’s stepping into a room filled with a crew in motion—three experts being miked up by Horace and a few other sound guys; Edmund standing near the snack table fiddling with a half-eaten doughnut; and _Dani_ locked in a serious discussion with Shirley just ahead—and it’s like everything screeches to a halt the moment she arrives. Just about everyone turns her way. She watches as one of the camera guys leans over to another one to whisper something, both of their eyes fixed on her. Panicked, her eyes dart to Horace, but he’s the only person still working. 

Well, him and Theo, who he is currently miking and, after yesterday, she’s fairly certain Theo won’t know how to offer an escape.

“Hey! You came!”

Someone comes at her from the side, a warm hand lifting up to rest on her shoulder. It’s Edmund and he’s throwing her an easy grin like nothing’s happened at all. 

Like everything is normal.

“Did I look that clearly like I needed saving?” she asks, genuinely curious.

He frowns. “Well, no, I just—”

“Wanted to make sure I didn’t bolt,” she finishes. He doesn’t correct her. “Well, I can’t say I fault the principle, but I’m alright.”

(There a million and one reasons why she is _not_ alright: _i’m asking for more time_ ; or, _i can’t i don’t know how_ ; or else, _i never said i don’t love you_ ; and these are the things she is trying to reconcile with the dress Dani’s wearing, the curl of her hair on her shoulders.)

(It was an _affair_ , it was, because it was not brief or sort or one-sided; there were eager hands on her hibs and her rib cage, in her hair and her kisses have always been met just as readily, and that is why she is standing here, she thinks. That is why she is still trying.)

Anyway. Edmund. Decision Day. Jamie has lost her best friend and the woman she loves and the hundred other things that Dani has not been able to be for her, and now all she has is a man she hardly knows in a room full of people she’s apparently _never_ known.

“She’s been talking to Shirley for a long time,” says Edmund. “I don’t know what about. And, technically, we’re not supposed to discuss our decisions with each other—which is really...I don’t know.”

And Jamie knows this. She nods. None of this is news.

“But,” continues Edmund, Edmund _husband_ , Edmund _enemy-to-none_ , Edmund is offering an olive branch after a war that is not his own to a girl he has lost it to.

(She has never hated Edmund; no, never. But there is something in his kind eyes that sparks which she has never seen before and he does not _have_ to try, but he is trying all the same.)

(What is there left to lose? Does she have anything left?)

“ _But_ ,” says Edmund, unexpected comrade and ally, “I know how this is going to go.”

_______

Edmund knows. Jamie _hopes_. Dani does not speak to her.

Shirley tries very briefly. Stumbles over what might be an apology coming from anyone else, but Jamie only nods in response and then they have to film anyway.

More important things than this necessary feud between the two of them.

Dani and Edmund take their seats on the sofa across from the experts, stylists fussing over them at the last moment, and, yes. 

Much more important.

_______

There are things that Jamie does not know, of course.

Filmed conversations between Dani and her mother, between Dani and Trish and her other friends. Between Dani and Edmund. Trying to make sense of everything that’s happened. Usually these things are prodded and tried by people like Shirley—drama orchestrated into more drama—and, were Jamie able to consider their existence right now, she might have assumed this was the case here, too.

But she doesn’t know how little Shirley has prodded Dani to be open about anything, how much she’s retreated. She doesn’t know that she has simply let Dani _talk_ and _be_ and hasn’t tried much of anything, either out of respect or guilt or some combination of the two.

She doesn’t know that in her video diary just the night before, Dani sat in the living room of her own house—having drifted back to its ever-present safety net, leaving the other flat to Edmund—and said a lot of things about having tried. About having been wrong about wanting to get married. Talked vaguely about finding something she hadn’t expected. Some _one_.

She doesn’t know that Edmund has had similar conversations with his friends and family. That he’s talked about trying and how things just don’t work out sometimes. In the conversations between him and Dani, they were amicable to one another. Friendly. Apologetic. The most important conversation happened off camera. The one where he was brought up to speed because Shirley’s story hasn’t stopped being crafted. 

Hard to stop a wheel in motion.

Anyway, there’s something else that Jamie doesn’t know and it’s the most important thing of all:

Shirley isn’t the only person telling the story anymore; Dani is, too.

And it’s about to reach its conclusion.

_______

In the last episode’s final cut, a screen will appear after a compilation of all these moments Jamie knows nothing about. It will read: _Edmund & Dani — Final Decisions _. It will slide away, then, to show the couple in question staring down all three experts in a clean, modern-looking studio talk room.

Arthur will be leaned forward in that eager way he always is while Charlotte sits with her legs crossed, smiling politely. Theo will be the only one with a serious look on her face, likely knowing what’s coming—either because her sister has kept her more in the know than she has kept the others or because she’s been a participant in some interesting pillow talk as of late.

“So, a little over a week ago,” Arthur starts right out the gate, “you two decided to call it quits. How is it, seeing each other now?”

Edmund and Dani look at one another, shifting a little strangely under the other’s gaze. Their body language is surprisingly open for two people on the edge of divorce. Neither of them will be pressed to the armrest nearest to them in an attempt to get away.

Edmund will even smile, genuinely, and say, “You look great,” with a little gesture at Dani’s clothes.

Dani laughs. “Thanks, so do you.” 

A talking head then: Arthur saying something about ending things as amicably as possible. He will spend most of this interview baffled by the ease with which these two people still interact, despite it all. He will equate their friendship to lingering romance and Theo will look like she wants to hit him up until the moment everything breaks.

But, before then, he asks if there’s anything they would like to say to one another now that they’re in the same room again.

As if they have spent this last week avoiding one another and letting tension mount. As if Edmund did not admit directly that they’ve hashed it all out. More than once.

“I think we’ve...we’ve said it all already,” Edmund will say, turning to Dani for confirmation.

“Yeah,” she’ll agree. “I think we…” A shift in her posture. A slight cough to clear her throat. “I’m still...really sorry about the things that happened and... _how_ they happened, but—”

A nod. “It’s okay,” comes the response. “It’s—”

“Right, we just—”

“Yeah.”

Silence will follow. A shift in the tension. It won’t dissipate, no, or even grow, but it will remain, all the same.

Tension not from the two people sitting on the couch apologizing to one another for the sake of three other people, but from everything else that is going unsaid. From the way that Dani looks past the camera, to where Jamie is standing near the wall, arms crossed and waiting. Always waiting.

“It’s clear to me,” Charlotte will cut in then, “just from watching the way you two interact that you still care a lot about one another.” Edmund and Dani will bob their heads along, glance shyly at one another like they’re not sure if they’re _allowed_ to care given everything else. “Clearly, this experiment didn’t go the way any of us wanted it to for you two, but...Is there any part of either of you that regrets this?”

A striking question.

Edmund hesitates. Jamie is holding her breath.

Dani will save the moment, though, cutting in to say, “I don’t...I think there are a lot of things I regret, but...I don’t think I can say doing this— _being_ here—is one of them. Not given…” Another glance to Jamie, but only Edmund will catch it. 

Only Edmund. Only Jamie. Only Shirley, standing beside her.

“Obviously,” Edmund will cut in, his turn to save it all, “I’m really...grateful to have met Dani. I think we’re still so similar in so many ways and we’re really...I mean, she’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I wish things could have been different. Really, I do. But...they’re not.”

Theo nodding. Charlotte nodding. Arthur looking two seconds away from another protest. 

Shirley shifting her weight back and forth anxiously.

There are other questions, of course. No bad blood between Edmund and Dani, just careful respect and a remorse evident in each of their responses. Still, the experts want to pick apart the failure of their match in exhaustive detail, but the bulk of this won’t be shown. Just the more important pieces. The striking bits of dialogue. And then the tense music—the strain of it above the voices. 

Above Theo leaning forward a bit to say: “Edmund, I think I’ll ask you this first, but...Do you want to stay married to Dani?”

Something strained will flicker in Edmund’s eyes. He won’t look away, not even to glance at Dani. He’ll just say: 

“If you asked me that even a week ago, I think my answer would have been different. But...I didn’t know then the things that I know now and...I think that the best thing for us to do is to...divorce.”

Of course, this will be stretched out and lengthened. Cut in half by a commercial break just to make it all the more dramatic. But the gist of it will be said so simply. When he’s finished, Edmund and Dani will share a profound look meant only for the two of them to understand while it cuts to and from a talking head of him later, talking around why this is the best move for them. All important details cut away in order to keep what comes next unexpected.

And then the question again. Theo saying, “Dani, do you want to stay married to Edmund or do you want a divorce?”

No sign of the way Jamie is so close to collapse behind the cameras. No indication of the crew members glancing at her nervously like they’re just as nervous as she is. No one will know, really, that Jamie has been waiting eight long weeks dreading this question and its inevitable answer.

Dreading the way Dani will take a deep breath, the way she’ll hesitate. Lip caught between teeth. Blinking rapidly. Finally, saying, “You know, when I...when I signed up to do this, I honestly didn’t believe I would find what I was looking for.”

Seen here: the shock of a phrasing no one on camera is expecting. 

Dani continues. Doesn’t stop. Says, “I thought there was no way I could because I...I’ve spent so much of my life running from what I really want. Who I really am. So the idea that I could find it by marrying a-a man was...ridiculous. Let alone one I’d never met.”

If the last thing said was a surprise, this is the equivalent of dropping a bomb in the middle of the room; no one is left unscathed. 

“But I wanted to be someone else and I really thought I could be. I—” And here she will break off. She will look up again and there’ll be no way of hiding what she’s doing: looking very directly at someone outside the frame. “I didn’t plan on finding my person because of this show. Or...falling in love.”

A gasp will ripple through the room, mostly unheard, and then the cameras won’t miss a thing. Shirley will glance at Jamie nervously and then Carl—good ol’ Carl—will swivel his around with a merry grin to point directly at Jamie as Shirley slides out of frame.

Cut to a wide shot from another camera: Dani getting to her feet and starting towards Jamie—this person that the audience will recognize from all those captured moments spliced into the story all this time; all those shots of them laughing between shots, a semi-blurry shot of them through that glass window in the club during Dani’s bachelorette party, laughing and sharing a drink and then on the airplane—footage from the seat just in front of theirs—cheeks pressed together as they listened to Jamie’s headphones and couldn’t stop smiling; in Santorini, in Dani’s flat or in between talking heads; the night Edmund stormed out and Dani spoke to her directly and Jamie listened, ordered the cameras to stop filming; from the shot Carl captured at the hotel of the two of them talking in that room’s doorway and then Dani darting forward to kiss her, to haul Jamie in until Jamie was kissing her back and they were moving into the room all the way, the door shutting behind them; the hush of some of their conversation, used only with permission Shirley has not gotten from them yet, but will once this is over; _i keep waiting to wake up_ and _i don’t want to, if i’m dreaming i don’t want to wake up_ —and it will only be a surprise because of Dani’s honesty. Her boldness.

The ending won’t be a surprise at all because the audience will know, will _hope_ , from every single final cut of every episode—all those moments blending together, paving the road that leads to _this_ —that this has been coming all along.

Even if Jamie didn’t.

Even if she never could have guessed.

Because how _could_ she have?

How could she have anticipated that Dani—who’s been so afraid of her mother, of others, of _herself_ ; who’d been so terrified on the beach that night at the thought of everyone _knowing_ —would choose Jamie _first_?

What the audience won’t know is how perfectly Jamie’s response will mirror that night in the alleyway. That astonishment and awe in Dani’s expression as Jamie said the thing she’d been trying to run from all along.

“You...You love me?” Jamie will ask and Dani will nod, stepping nearer and nearer.

“Yeah, Jay. I really, _really_ love you. I should have said it before. I’m so—”

For all the blood they’ve shed, all the complications and the way they’ve fought this thing between them every step of the way, Jamie will really and truly have no more fight in her. Not even enough to hear one more apology.

“God, Dani,” she’ll say, cutting her off as she, too, moves forward. “God, just... _Come here_.”

And then she’ll pull Dani in, hands cupping the other woman’s cheeks, and she’ll kiss her right there. Will sigh into it as Dani sobs against her lips in gentle relief, wrapping her arms around Jamie’s waist and pulling her up and in. Kissing her back. Harder and harder.

On the couch behind them, Edmund will give a smile, filled with only the slightest amount of pain. He’ll give a happy, little fist pump and then look over at the experts, all of whom are watching this whole thing with varying expressions of surprise and excitement. Most of the excitement is Theo’s and you can see the family resemblance for one of the first times; Shirley is practically bouncing up and down beside a weepy-looking Russ while a proud Horace looks on in unfettered joy.

Ridiculous. Sappy. A litany of other adjectives that Jamie _loathes_ to have associated with herself. But she won’t even be able to be angry or upset or anything other than completely, _dismally_ in love.

And, dammit, if she didn’t give Shirley what she wanted after all.

_______

It’s easy. Jamie can’t figure out how because it _shouldn’t_ be. Edmund shouldn’t be looking so happy for them. Shirley shouldn’t be smiling _like that_. 

Jamie shouldn’t be getting what she _wants_. 

That’s not how this works.

And yet—

“So, I’m guessing you want a divorce then,” Theo jokes when Dani and Jamie finally manage to stop laughing and crying into every kiss. 

Edmund laughs like it’s the first joke he’s ever heard. Even Arthur looks amused, despite it all.

“I mean, that’s how _I_ took it,” Edmund says and then Dani laughs and Jamie does, too, ducking her head against Dani’s shoulder and clutching her tighter.

“Yeah, I think,” Dani says, arm curled around Jamie still, “I think that’s for the best. Wouldn’t you say?” She nudges Jamie as she asks this and Jamie has never laughed so freely in her life, yet here she is, acting like she was born to do just that.

“Might make things awkward if you don’t,” she offers and it’s easy.

She doesn’t understand it.

But it _is_. And she’s not going to fight it anymore.

_______

Things to do then. Things to discuss. Permission to give Shirley and waivers for Jamie to sign because she’s not just a crew member anymore if she decides to let this _happen_ ; she’ll be another subject, as crazy as it seems.

All of that is important and will have to happen, but not yet. Because Jamie feels like a towel that’s been wrung dry too many times and she has no intention of letting Dani get more than a foot away from her ever again. They have things to talk about too, things to apologize for and figure out, and she thinks they are more important than anything else.

Edmund isn’t ready to hug Dani yet. There is still something in his eyes when he looks at her that Jamie understands all too well, but she knows now that there is nothing to fear. He gives her this nod after they say their goodbyes outside the studio, like the passing of a torch he’d never even been holding and Jamie nearly drowns in a surge of affection for this man who she’s spent much of the last two months unable to even _look_ at.

It’s strange that loving the same person has created between them such a painless truce.

In the town car offered by the show to take Dani home, Jamie gives her own address. Doesn’t stop holding her hand. Feels too big for her own skin, for her body. Feels too many things at once and she is used to that, yes, but the unfamiliar part is this:

She is _happy_ . She is _in love_ and she is _allowed to be_.

She is loved back.

Something else that is true: she is certain she has never been herself before this moment.

“I love you,” Dani says as they’re driven away, through the busy London streets, no closer to home than they have been since the studio because Jamie thinks she already _is_ home, and isn’t that just the sappiest thought? She is cupping Jamie’s face now despite the awkward angle. “Oh, my god, I love you so much.”

Jamie kisses her, then the thumb near her lips. “You do, don’t you?”

Another kiss. “Yes. _Yes_. I’ve been...I’ve been such an idiot.”

“Well,” Jamie says, pulling back enough to smile, “not just you.”

Heaven parcelled into four limbs and the bluest eyes Jamie’s ever seen. It’s hard to imagine life before all of this. 

That blinding smile she’ll never get over. “How do you feel about dating a divorced woman?” 

Jamie laughs. “How do you feel about _being_ a divorced woman?” She pauses. Thinks this over. “ _Almost_ divorced.”

“Divorced,” Dani says. Kisses Jamie’s nose. “I think I feel good. I don’t...I haven’t had much time to think it over. I was a little busy planning my love declaration.” She ducks her head then, curling into Jamie’s embrace rests her cheek on her bony shoulder as the car jostles and bounces them along.

“You just had to be dramatic about it,” Jamie teases because she can, pressing a kiss to the top of Dani’s head. 

Dani laughs into her neck. Threads their fingers together on Jamie’s laps like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Maybe it _is_. “Well,” she says, “it made for good television at least, right?”

And Jamie nods. Can’t stop smiling. “Yeah,” she agrees. “It certainly did.”

..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only 15k this time. booo. :(
> 
> hope you enjoyed the cheese! but that's Hollywood, bay-bay.

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from the incredibly terrible song that plays at the beginning of each episode of this godforsaken show.
> 
> hmu on [tumblr](https://andawaywego.tumblr.com/) if you're so inclined. if you want more of this, please egg me on. i crave it.


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